My Sex Party Friend Group Has Very Specific Rules About Who Can Attend. My Wife and I Broke Them.

How to Do It Some rules are made to be broken. Photo illustration by Slate. Photo by Albert Shakirov/Getty Images Plus. Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily. How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous! Dear How to Do It, The social circle my husband and I belong to holds regular sex parties. One of the rules is no unaccompanied men. A week and a half ago it was our turn to host, and the wife of one of our regulars couldn’t make it due to an emergency at her work. We let her husband attend anyway, and now about half of our friends are pissed off that we made an exception. The other half were fine with it since this is someone we all know very well. Did we do the wrong thing? —There’s an Exception to Every Rule Dear There’s an Exception to Every Rule, Rules are only as worthy as they are logical. The attendee in question was someone that you knew and someone who had been repeatedly invited to the parties presumably because people enjoy having sex with him. If this guy was a regular, it was fair of you, your husband, and him to assume that he had an open invitation. However, if there was a compelling reason why he should be barred without his wife, even if it was based on past experiences that have nothing to do with him (say, guys who have attended in the past without women partners have tended to be grabby, pushy, rough, or otherwise poorly behaved), I could understand the frustration. If there has been no such conduct and people are pissed off at you for not enforcing a rule on principle, they might just be annoying sticklers. Do these people also refuse to jaywalk or drive over the speed limit? It is my understanding that no-unaccompanied-men rules in these spaces exist to keep a good gender balance, specifically by promoting the attendance of women. It would make sense for your group to recoil at an unaccompanied stranger, but unless there are tangible reasons to be wary of this guy on his own that you didn’t write in your letter, the reaction seems outsized. There is a lot of uncertainty here. Given that about half of the group is just “pissed,” this seems like something people will get over. You should at least hear them out, though, in case there is something that you are missing beyond a fealty to rules. If you want to double down, you can suggest an amendment to the cited rule: No unvetted unaccompanied men. If people have an issue with this, let them say their peace. The responses may prove enlightening and make situations like this a lot less confusing, moving forward. 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. Dear How to Do It, I’m a mid-30s, married, polyamorous man in a coastal, liberal city, who is currently not in any relationships besides my marriage. I’m pretty short—like the 5’6” on my ID is hyperbolic— but other than that, I’m confident enough in my looks. I exercise often and I’m in good enough shape that strangers comment on it. I’m reasonably handsome and have a full head of hair. I know there’s no hidden, ugly thing about my looks like brown teeth because I married a woman who’d 100 percent let me know. Here’s the issue. I’ve barely been able to get a date in forever! A few years ago, even when I wasn’t looking my best, I wasn’t having this issue. I could meet women I found attractive off apps, maybe not easily but easy enough that I’d go on a date with someone once a month or so. I’m looking for someone to date, though something more casual with someone I like would be nice too but I feel invisible. I’ve had almost no matches on apps in as long as I can remember and those few who do match with either don’t respond or stop after a few messages. When I meet women out in the wild, which happens maybe every other week, and have a good enough conversation to exchange instagram or text, they don’t text me back after initial hellos I’m not texting horny, off-putting shit either. It’s just basic getting to know you, mutual interest stuff—book recs, etc. I don’t go to lifestyle mixers or sex parties because I’ve found them to be self-selecting with the sorts of people in the Lifestyle I like as friends but don’t want to date. So what’s the deal? Is it my age? Is it something in the air right now? Do I need to try events again, despite them not working for me in the past, or is there something else obvious I’m missing? —Short Prince Dear Short Prince, Never disqualify the possibility of “something [being] in the air right now.” Success/failure in attracting people can be random. Sometimes there’s a flood, sometimes there’s a drought and you don’t have access to the weather patterns to even make sense of it. Just hang in there. You are not too old to attract someone (no one is, really, but 30s is young unless you’re, like, Gen Z or Alpha, and men aren’t held to the unrealistic aging standards that women are, by and large). Maybe you are too short for some people, but clearly not all, as you have a wife and have dated women in the past. There could be something in your approach that is off-putting. Are you pushy? Cocky? Not confident enough? Do you ask questions of the other people you meet? Are you engaging/engaged? Do you exude warmth? These are just some things to ask yourself when probing how you might be coming off. Since your wife is so opinionated, if she is interested in helping out here, you might want to do a play scene with her. Pretend like she’s a stranger and attempt to pick her up. Maybe she’ll give you some pointers. I also wonder if, when you were successfully dating, you had a wife at the time. If not, that may be your answer. Polyamory and non-monogamy are definitely more common in straight people now than they had been previously in modern culture, but not everyone is into that. Monogamous people might be wary of getting involved with someone who is already attached to someone else. It just makes your search potentially more complicated. An additional thing to keep in mind is that app fatigue is a real thing. A 2025 survey of 1,000 app users found 78 percent of them reported feeling dating-app burnout at least sometimes, with millennials being the age demographic most likely to report this (80 percent of them did). This is just a reminder that the lack of response may have nothing to do with you at all, but instead says more about the larger process. The issue that you have with lifestyle mixers/sex parties might not be present if you were to investigate your local poly scene. While they may overlap (or be one and the same), if they are distinct, it’s worth checking out a munch. You may find the people are less sex-forward and more relationship oriented, which it sounds like is what you’re looking for. Send Us Your Questions About the Workplace! For a forthcoming advice column, we want to help you navigate your social dynamics at work. Does your colleague constantly bug you after hours? Has an ill-advised work romance gone awry? Ask us your question here! Dear How to Do It, I’m a guy in my 70s. I have been solosexual for many years, with a predilection for prostate stimulation. My sex life has been immensely satisfying, but suddenly, without any changes in medications or otherwise, a strange thing happened: My prostate completely stopped responding to stimulation. I’ve tried all kinds of toys, larger and smaller, motorized—everything, including some made specifically for prostate stimulation. Still nothing. My prostate is healthy. What gives? I’m too embarrassed to ask my doctor. Have you heard of this condition? Is there anything that can be done to restore the pleasurable sensations from anal sex? —Dead End Dear Dead End, What you describe is seemingly rare, though that may have to do with wariness similar to yours: People may be unwilling to discuss issues related to prostate stimulation with their doctor or otherwise report them. After all, anal sex of any sort remains stigmatized. I nonetheless checked in with a few doctors to see what could be the cause. Joshua R Gonzalez, a urologist and sexual medicine specialist with a robust online following (Instagram here and TikTok here) told me via email that theoretically, someone could lose sensation in the prostate as a result of the following conditions: pelvic floor dysfunction, pudendal neuralgia or nerve compression, prostatic inflammation/infection, or some spinal pathology. Charles Welliver, director of men’s health at Albany Medical College suggested that something like this could be the result of cauda equina syndrome, adding that if that were the case, you’d likely be presenting the syndrome’s other known symptoms, including lower back pain and urinary incontinence. Cauda equina is similar to pudendal neuralgia, though the latter is a chronic condition. Cauda equina, on the other hand, is a medical emergency that could result in permanent damage and/or paralysis. You are certain that your prostate is healthy, though if you are unwilling to discuss this with your doctor, how certain can you really be? My advice is to talk to someone. While Welliver also floated the possibility that your issue is psychosomatic, it’s much better for you to know for sure if something physiological is at work. As it marks a significant change in your functioning, it’s absolutely the kind of thing that you should seek expert help with. A moment of embarrassment is worth the potentially life-changing outcome of such an inquiry. Seeing a new doctor that you don’t already have a history with may make this conversation easier. If you can find a urologist in your area who is gay/serves a gay clientele, it will probably be even easier. You could then expect them to have a background in anal stimulation issues (at least as they pertain to the prostate) and truly no judgment toward you for going there. —Rich More Advice From Slate I’m a 20-year-old woman and I have been with my boyfriend for almost two years. He is kind, funny, attentive, and all-around wonderful to be with. About six months ago, some friends invited us to a swingers party. I had sex with several men who were much, much larger than him. Now I can’t stop being with more well-endowed men, and I feel awful about it. What should I do? Advice Sex