Reader's New Dude Has Too Much Stamina. What Should She Do?

"Marjorie, hold all my calls. Gonna be a long night."

One among us has a problem! Quick! Grab your rescue bag* and let's go help!

This urgent query has come in over the wires: 

Jill, my favorite sex writer, who knows all the good shit. I have a question that I simply refuse to google or tweet. So I'm going to throw it your way... I've recently taken a lover who has stamina like I've never experienced. So much so, it is almost a turn off. Despite hours of hot sex, full of variety, it's nearly impossible to get him to orgasm. In fact, it's taken him manually handling business. This is a blow to my fragile ego. I've pulled muscles I didn't even know I had. What's a girl to do?

NAP 

So. Besides bowing in admiration for the phrase "I've recently taken a lover" (~swoon~), here's what I've got:

 --My friend had this identical problem with some dude she was dating from Tinder. Meaning, you are not alone, this is a thing that happens, and actually, I'm not even going to call it a "problem," I'm gonna say "situation."

--Maybe he's watching "too much" porn (whatever that means) and now needs that kind of hyper-stimulation to get off. So a). a l'il porn diet. Yes, tragic, but perhaps necessary. Or b.) bring whatever porn he may be into (or may not--I'm already accusing this unknown dude of overwatching porn) into your fuckery. Imitate it, fetishize it, watch it during, whatever. If something super turns someone on and it's not actively horrible to you, I say take advantage of that passion and explore the sordidness together.

--See if he'd be willing to switch up his jerk off habits. Dan Savage, who knows things, says everyone should change up how they jerk off (other hand, new positions, lighter touch) so they'd don't become over-accustomed to it and only able to come in that one specific way. I personally never follow this advice, but it's something I know I should do, and intend to...someday, like going vegan. (I just read Eating Animals by Jonathan Safran Foer and holy fuck.)

--Work within this framework.  He needs a hand to come, so do a lot of us. Maybe you can go with the amount of P-in-V fucking that seems good to you both, and y'all just accept that a handy is gonna be how it ends for him. This is not failure. This is kind of a more queered attitude to hetero sex and is super cool and progressive of you. Celebrate that shit. Let him come all over your tits or something spectacular.

That's my part. This chafed reader also wants to hear your advice, dear Internet stranger. Whatcha got?

xoxo

jill 

*Rescue bag suggested contents:

And yes, I did just see Isle of Dogs last night. How did you know?

Real Sex Lives: Girly Jona, A Jerk-Off Description in the Second Person

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What is Feminist Porn Anyway?

Well, my friends, I am a feminist porn virgin no longer. As faithful In Bed With Married Women readers will recall, I've written about porn before here (and okay, here, too, geez, get off my back) but had only seen the usual freely available Internet variety, i.e. guy porn. This weekend, I broke down and ordered some so-called feminist porn. I was quite pleased to discover that feminist porn was not--as I had halfway feared--naked chicks sitting around discussing equal pay for equal work, but rather porn designed to appeal to women.

The movie I got was called Matinee. Here's the blurb for it:

Two theatre actors who play onstage lovers without much zing -- until one critical peformance, when they decide to improvise. The results will thrill you as much as they do the Matinee audience who watches them really begin to make love. Bridging the gap between indy art film and sex film, this plot-driven, scripted mini-featurette by US-born, Amsterdam-based filmmaker Jennifer Lyon Bell features real actors performing their first-ever explicit scene, not porn performers, and the result is smart, nuanced, and oh-so-sexy.

I was into the idea of porn as "smart" and "indy art film," so I had high hopes. And damned if the thing didn't totally work for me. I was quite surprised, actually, that I liked all the emotional stuff, fuller story line, etc... I had no idea I was, yeesh, such a... girl.

So now, much like Tiresias (yes, most of my knowledge of Greek mythology comes from Peter Gabriel-era Genesis records), I feel that I have experienced the male and the female side of things. Well, at least porn watchin' kinds of things.

With Matinee, I could see all the appealing-to-the-ladies elements in action, but I still fell for every last one. And what exactly are these elements of girl porn? Well, here, I made a list for you. Perhaps you can clip it and consult it next time you're watching porn.

Considering Porn, Perhaps Too Much

So, I have been thinking about porn. Not in the John Mayer "There have probably been days when I saw 300 vaginas before I got out of bed" way (each of the 300, I assume, a wonderland). No, I'm thinking about porn in the over-intellectualizing way that is my way as a compulsive reader/writer/lazy-ass (basic tenet of this life philosophy: Why actually do it when you can just read about it?) It was all spurred by an article, Should We Worry Whether Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality?, sent by an In Bed With Married Women reader from Michigan.

The article features an interview with Gail Dines, author of Pornland: How Porn Has Hijacked Our Sexuality, in which she "traces the history of the porn industry from Playboy and Penthouse, to today's brutal fare than resembles nothing less than the videotaped sexual assault of women." Dines says that today's porn is vicious, it's everywhere, readily available, and it's ruining our ability to have intimate relationships.

Dines isn't just some uptight lady revisiting the old "porn is bad for women" arguments and picking out the worst porn to support her points. She studied the most mainstream, freely available porn--the idea being that she would look at whatever would be available to the average 11 year old kid trolling for porn on the Internet. (Kids these days have it so easy. Why, in my day, we had to do serious reconnaissance to find a local dad's Playboys.)

Here is a sample of the opening text of a typical mainstream porn site Hines found:

Do you know what we say to things like romance and foreplay? We say fuck off! This is not another site with half-erect weenies trying to impress bold sluts. We take gorgeous young bitches and do what every man would REALLY like to do. We make them gag till their makeup starts running, and then they get all other holes sore -- vaginal, anal, double penetrations, anything brutal involving a cock and an orifice. And then we give them the sticky bath.

Okay. Yes, it's fantasy, not reality. Yes, it's just sex. And, yes, it's porn, for fuck's sake--of course it's supposed to be nasty. And yet... As much as it's fantasy and not real life, media porn does give people some sort of guideline for what sex looks like. Is this really how we want to instruct our young people (and ourselves, for that matter) in how to enjoy each other?

In the interest in pure journalism (and, okay, fine, some prurient interest), I googled "porn." Here's some of the available fare today on the top hit, PornHub: "Now Be A Good Bitch...", "Busty Brunette Gets Her Ass Nailed!" and "Three Guys Fuck the Blonde Whore." I watched "Three Guys Fuck the Blonde Whore." [An aside: I actually have a degree in film studies (you got to watch movies in class!), and it's all come to this. Sorry, Professor Bauland.] Besides some really really bad acting by the actress who scored the highly coveted role of "Whore"--at one point, her "passion" closely resembled "giving birth to twins"--there didn't seem to be anything super-offensive. I might prefer it was called "Woman Enjoys A Tryst With Three Attentive Gentlemen" or something, but that's just semantics.

What was striking to me was the lack of variety. Oh sure, there are your Asian chicks, MILFs, barely legals and the like, but the general tone is that the women are all "sluts" who need some jackhammer pounding. Whatever, that's fine enough, but that's the only choice. By focusing on only one form of sex--faceless man bones over-emoting slut--we miss out on the 8 billion other forms that sex can take. Where's the joyful, the transcendent or the deliciously slow sex? Where's the sex where the participants are overcome by passion--or at least glance at each other with slight friendliness?

I'm not such a girlie girl that I need a lengthy backstory involving Scottish Highlanders and a lost family secret or something, but some sort of recognizable human emotion would be nice. To that end, I turned to Good Vibrations thinking they, being female-friendly, progressive and all that, might have something more appealing.  I found a movie called Matinee.  Here's the description:

Two theatre actors who play onstage lovers without much zing -- until one critical peformance, when they decide to improvise. The results will thrill you as much as they do the Matinee audience who watches them really begin to make love. Bridging the gap between indy art film and sex film, this plot-driven, scripted mini-featurette by US-born, Amsterdam-based filmmaker Jennifer Lyon Bell features real actors performing their first-ever explicit scene, not porn performers, and the result is smart, nuanced, and oh-so-sexy.

"Smart,""nuanced," "Indy art film"? I'm all over that (see above, admission of film degree). So I am just going to order the damn thing to figure out if I'm just an uptight prig who thinks mainstream porn is kind of lame, or if most porn actually is kind of lame and I just seek a higher quality product. (see again: film degree, connection with pretentiousness).

If you want to watch along with me (not literally, I have enough weirdos sending me poorly worded invitations to meet up with them), click on this link or the picture at the end of the post to order the movie. (It's $29.95 but don't forget, if you're a new customer, use the coupon code GV15OFF to get 15% off.) We can reconvene in a couple weeks and discuss it.

In the meantime, what do you think of porn? Do you watch it? Do you shun it? If so, why? Have you found porn that's sexy? Tell me what you think. Just not in person.

Shhh--I Got A Playboy, Let's Look At It!

A stack of hidden Playboy magazines was as big a part of the standard-issue house of the 1960s and 70s as shag carpeting, jelly jars as drinking glasses, and a paperback copy of Jonathan Livingston Seagull. Dads of the era, who were clearly not gifted at hiding their stash of porn, inadvertently provided many of us with an afternoon activity--gathering the neighbor kids and looking at Playboys. (And did any dad ever choose a hiding place that was not under the bed or in the dresser drawer?)

I don't think I had a seen a Playboy since about 1977 when my friend and I were perusing her dad's, Mr. F's, collection. (Hiding place: under the bed.) So last week, when a reader generously provided me with a copy, I was eager for the illicit thrill of checking it out. I waited until the kids were in bed.  Then I waited further as they faked me out and kept creeping back out of their bedrooms, scaring the bejeezus out of me as I anxiously prepared to look at my forbidden reading materials.

Brave Reader Will Watch Porn On Your Behalf, aka Someone's In The Kitchen With Dinah

"I hate porn in general because of the lack of plot, stupid fake tits and scary fingernails that you shouldn't be wielding around soft body parts," writes Miss Kitler of West Virginia. "I also hate it because no one looks like they're REALLY having a good time and you cannot convince me that gagging is 'pleasurable.'"

Well, Miss Kitler, I think many of could agree with that assessment (and if you don't, send us an irate e-mail immediately). Porn films commonly feature actors joylessly pounding away, as though the act is giving them about 75% less stimulation than it should and they have to hammer at it all the more strenuously to make up for it.  And don't even get us started on the girls and their passionless moaning. "Oh yeah, that feels so good," they groan dully, in a depressingly poor approximation of real sexual desire.

Does good porn exist? Let's find out. Brave Miss Kitler is going to watch some porn for us, specifically Fluid: Women Redefining Sexuality from our favorite purveyors of smut, Good Vibrations, and report back on her findings. Why do we have high hopes for this particular film?