A recent article in The Guardian’s sex advice column, Sexual Healing, has gotten a lot of attention after this guy wrote in with a question whose answer seems pretty obvious to everybody but him.
I tried to come up with a funny tweet to go with this headline but I think it’s actually a work of art by itself pic.twitter.com/37bwKkSazH
— Marie Le Conte (@youngvulgarian) March 5, 2018
I mean, really, what do you even say to that?
Oh, mate pic.twitter.com/Sib9N1MKJ7
— Becca (@pangopup) March 5, 2018
Oh, buddy pic.twitter.com/Htw1fQIq2i
— Michele (@inthefade) March 6, 2018
Peak ‘Oh, mate’.
— Nick Pettigrew (@Nick_Pettigrew) March 5, 2018
His letter in full reads, “I have been in a relationship for nine months. I thought the sex was good for us both, but when we finish she tells me to shower. I wondered why, and now I know – she masturbates. She has done it multiple times; I think she is insatiable. What should I do?”
The columnist, Pamela Stephenson Connolly, is actually incredibly generous (some might say coddling or perhaps even irresponsible) in her response, suggesting “Many women crave a second orgasm, especially if she has been super-aroused during intercourse.” Now, that is true, as are some of her other points like the fact that many people “find the type of orgasm they have during masturbation (for women, often clitorally focussed) to be qualitatively different from what is experienced during lovemaking.”
Sure, yes, maybe that’s what’s happening here. Maybe this guy is just so thrilling in bed that his girlfriend stays aroused long after they’re done. Sure. … Or maybe the answer is more obvious.
Hahahaha
Quite. pic.twitter.com/RlOvqVucWz— Dr Joanna Semlyen #FBPE (@Dr_Jo_S) March 5, 2018
A natural answer to the writer’s question of “What should I do?” is “Ask her!” but it doesn’t sound like the communication between these two is great. Or at all existent. (At least not when it comes to sex.) And–not knowing anything at all about his girlfriend–it’s not hard to see why this guy might not be super easy to talk to about your sexual needs. The shaming inherent in the assumption that her desire to masturbate makes her “insatiable” is unacceptable.
“Is she insatiable? That’s the ONLY thing it could be, right? It has to be a medical thing? Do I call a doctor or an exorcist?”
— Wile E. Minogue (@chrisopotamia) March 6, 2018
Even if she did climax with him (sure) and she has craved multiple orgasms “multiple times,” a sexual appetite does not indicate the sort of deviance he seems to be implying. And that his mind immediately went to imaging how damaged she must be instead of wondering whether she is truly satisfied with their sex life makes it pretty safe to assume that no, she is not.
A desire for sexual satisfaction is in no way shameful, and while I wish this woman and any woman (any person at all) didn’t feel the need to hide her masturbation, this guy is utterly ridiculous for feeling so scandalized over finding out that she does.
(image: Matthew Henry / Burst)
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