Before Giving a Risqué Wedding Gift, Ask These Two Questions

How to Do It Rich Juzwiak replies to readers’ comments and suggestions. Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Slate and Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. Each month, How to Do It columnists Jessica Stoya and Rich Juzwiak ask readers for their thoughts on the letters they’ve received. In this edition, Rich replies to readers’ comments and suggestions below. Hey How to Do It, Re What’s Wrong With a Blender?: There are kind of two separate issues here: 1) Is this an appropriate gift for a wedding in general? 2) Is this an appropriate gift for this couple in particular? I think the answer to #1 is pretty clearly no. Wedding gifts typically aren’t expected to be private—you really think this would be a fun surprise for one of them to open in front of their mom or their 10-year-old niece? Unless they have sex-related items on their registry, I think it’s safer to assume this would be an unwelcome time. Unsolicited sex stuff on the wedding day is crass. The answer to #2 depends on the couple. Just knowing their sexual orientation alone isn’t enough to determine that. It depends on their personalities. Do you know them better, or does your wife? The person who knows them better should cast the deciding vote about whether this happens … but either way, not at the wedding. If you’re going to do this, do it as a bachelor party gift or something, not at the wedding itself. —Mercer I like the bachelor party idea. Always wise to match the present to the event. Also, I know I risk coming across as pedantic by saying this, but it’s very rare for people to open wedding gifts at their wedding, so no one needs to worry about the 10-year-old niece. Your overall point stands, though: In more situations than not, cockrings are inappropriate wedding gifts. Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication. Hey How to Do It, My friend once rented an apartment that had a very large mirror mounted on the ceiling above the bed. He told me he wanted to mount a “objects are larger than they appear in mirror” sign on it. —Turtles The dream. A caveat so attractive to the fragile male ego that I’m surprised more guys don’t have some version of it tattooed on their heads. (“Objects are larger than they appear to your perception” or something along those lines?) Hey How to Do It, Re Confused and Turned Off: Talk to Alex about this. He’s almost certainly aware that this is one possibility of his gender exploration. He’s bound to be worried about it, but will probably appreciate you treating it as a problem for you to solve together—even if the solution is that you become friends instead of lovers. Just because you’re attracted to men doesn’t mean you’re attracted to every man. I’m a trans guy. The people who were attracted to me as a short, busty 30-year-old woman with hair down to my ass are not necessarily attracted to me as a short, chunky, balding 45-year-old guy. That’s OK, even though it’s painful at times. Thems the breaks of gender transition. —2Corbies Very helpful. I appreciate the last two sentences of your comment, especially. Rejection is part of life, regardless of your gender identity, and we survive it. Some situations call for a more delicate hand than others, but it’s pretty much universal. Hey How to Do It, This is for Doomed to be an Incel who was worried about hitting the dating scene with his premature ejaculation issue. I speak for many women of his age. If he is a giving and thoughtful lover, this is no issue at all and could even be a bonus. Penis-in-vagina and thrusting for long periods of time seems to be a cultural standard of good sex. But many women find this uncomfortable, exhausting, and even painful. We would much prefer a more creative lover who could take the time and effort to satisfy us in other ways. If he hits the apps, he could try being very open about this. Women like me would seek out a lover like that. Just saying. —Sex Is More Than PIV I would be interested to see just how well being upfront about PE worked on apps. It’s definitely one strategy that, of course, could be modified over time if he didn’t get any takers. Hope he’s reading. Hey How to Do It, Re Is the Line Fine: I’ll bet these two also played out a long-drawn game of “Does the other person like me, or do they not like me?” for years in the earlier phase of their friendship until one or the other gave up on the crush and started dating someone else. Lots of people have someone in their past that they liked a lot but didn’t like enough to overcome the fear of rejection, so never said anything. The fantasy on both sides of what “could have been” was never punctured by the reality of living together and sharing a bathroom or finances. Now they’ve found a way to extend that fantasy through fiction while never actually inserting any reality into it. Maybe this will just end up as an emotional outlet by which they get through two unhappy marriages, and nothing physical will ever happen; maybe it’s just foreplay before a full-blown affair, and they’re just using fiction as a way to pretend that’s not what they’re doing. Either way, putting this much thought into what they are or aren’t doing demonstrates that they’re no longer focused on their official partners as their primary relationships, and that’s already a betrayal. —Rune It’s a good point. I’d say that if it does qualify as a betrayal, though, it’s a low-level one. Managing unhappy/complicated relationships creates predicaments with no good solutions. If they’re committed to staying with their partners, as they say, we should assume they have their reasons. Ideally, they’d leave (or at least the friend in the deeply unhappy relationship would). They are fully aware of that option and yet not choosing it. Writing through the frustration seems like a solution on the “less bad” side of the spectrum. Advice Sex