Advice for Our Sexual Culture: Part I

Thoughts on what counts as "too much" porn, untangling ideas of femininity, the "benefits" of cuckolding and how to spend Valentine's Day alone.

Hello and welcome to Many Such Cases.

Last week, I announced the launch of an advice column ahead of Valentine’s Day, sending out a Google Form through which you all could anonymously share your innermost troubles, detail your romantic qualms and ask for my thoughts on your deviant behaviors. It has been such a thrill to get a glimpse into my readership in this way. Sure, I get messages nearly everyday from anonymous Twitter accounts who delight in telling me their “secrets,” but a lot of you aren’t that type of person. You deserve a way to get these things off your chest, regardless. So far, I’ve received dozens of evocative questions and topics to consider. Many of you are concerned about what’s “normal,” especially with regard to sexual inexperience. Others are anxious about what it means to conform in our current culture. Some of you are curious about spanking, about phone call etiquette, about cheating, about making friends, about financial domination. Over the next few weeks, I hope to address all of this. I am so grateful to everyone who has entrusted me with their stories.

I’m still accepting new submissions, so if you’d like to participate, you may do so anonymously here.

I am keeping a few of these responses free and unpaywalled, but the full scope will only be available to paid subscribers. Please consider joining their ranks.

I’ve included the submissions themselves, as well as the vague demographic info (or lack thereof) included by the person who sent them. Any further comments or suggestions on this whole format are welcomed!

Here we go!

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I grew up in a more conservative household, where PDA or discourse about sex was bordering non existent. So when I started having sexual relations with my partner, whether it was to try following the female role or due to my lack of confidence, I’ve always assumed a strongly passive role. There was no problem up until recently, when he broke his femur. He cant move any of his lower body to walk, much less take up sexual intitiative. We've been calling a lot more since his accident (long distance), and I trust him more and more. It makes me sad to get the sense he feels weak being impaired from sports and other manly activities, and so I’d like to cheer him up. Next time I see him is within a month, and my goal by then it to be less of a rag doll during sex.

So I was curious to ask: What are ways I can train acting upon my desires?

I’ve been wanting to become more comfortable being proactive in sex for a while, however I’m a little worried. It implies reverting the gender roles we’ve adhered to in our relationship, a dynamic I like and am scared running a risk to loose.

So second: How can I be more active during sex without feeling unfeminine? — 19, female, Madrid

Challenging your own perspective on the relationship between femininity and sexuality is difficult work. These are concepts that were imposed on you young, and have naturally come to shape your understanding of what it means to be a woman. I think it is admirable that you have such awareness of all this and want to shift this perspective toward something more conducive in having a happy relationship, sense of self and sex life.

I am going to answer these two questions together, because I think your apprehension on acting on your desires is linked to this internal belief that acting on your desires is itself an unfeminine trait. It thus first seems most important to address that there is nothing unfeminine about having desires and acting upon them. Wanting to take on a more active role for the sake of pleasing your partner strikes me as an inherently womanly: it is generous, sensual — all the things we associate with femininity. You can take on two possible perspectives here: you can separate your desire to be more active in sex and active in your desires from your concept of femininity, or you can work to better align the idea of being active in sex and your desires with your concept of femininity. Either are fine, but I’d personally prefer the latter. Embrace your femininity and your desires as one. Celebrate them in your mind. In sex, there is no strictly “female” role. The female role will always be whatever you make of it. No matter what position you and your partner have sex in or whether you’re the one to initiate it, you will remain a feminine woman. You can even still be submissive, if that is what you want. It is not about the specific shape of your bodies and how they move, but about how you feel.

Your partner’s own perspectives on these matters may be the hitch here. I’d strongly recommend vocalizing some of your desires and anxieties to him. I wouldn’t be surprised if he himself wanted you to initiate sex sometimes, or be the one on top. Some men do have rigid ideas about what it means to “be a man” in sex, but frankly, having you be on top shouldn’t be a challenge to that. Especially if he isn’t physically able to do anything but lay down, anyway! He himself may be struggling with similar anxieties as you, wanting to sexually perform a certain way and feeling disempowered in his masculinity because he is not currently able to do so. That you want to take initiative here is likely a relief. But again, I do suggest having this conversation with him, ideally in person. Whatever concerns he has about the matter will probably quickly be relieved if you demonstrate what you’re interested in…

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Can cuckolding be beneficial for real couples, opposed to simply being a porn fantasy? — white, late 20s