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Hi Betty,

First of all, thank you so much for your website. Even with as liberal of a mother as I had to raise me, the down and out details of sex, and overall how-to's are hard to find.

My question comes from the thoughts my mind is raising while reading these articles and learning better methods to have fun and have even better intimate time with my man. He and I have been best friends and tight as can be for years, and we are actually married now. I can honestly say I'm absolutely not religious or conservative in anyway, but it just turned out this one young man has been my first and only lover. I am the same to him. I was raised with a good deal of education on sexuality and the body, and was encouraged to self explore in my own time and place. He was raised Catholic, and was deeply shunned/scorned by his family when he was once caught in his normally perfect plan to masturbate privately. No education at ALL. (guess who's been the teacher? Thankfully he's a very wonderful student~)

I tell you this because I now wonder if I should apologize to him for a time I got mad at him. He's always been shy (understandably, and we've worked on it a LOT) but earlier this year he was also a bit hard to get into bed. There was always something needing doing, some noise outside, some disturbance that could possibly happen. We eventually had enough talks about how sex once-in-a-while (and I mean this boy seemed like he could go a month. Drove me insane) while I felt more than compelled to be all over him daily, was going to literally murder me with depriving abstinence. Daily wore him out too much, and granted, I could understand the concept of fewer, more lasting, intense encounters rather than a bunch of faster ones. I got it down to a science with him, because I knew his drive took time to 'build up' you could say. Sometimes I couldn't fathom how he didn't want it more, being a 20 year old male. So one night I asked him if he ever played with himself without me there. To my great mystification, it turned out he was doing it in the middle of the night sometimes while I was asleep to play out dreams he was having about us.

I got angry after thinking about it. I was so desperate to share more sexual time with him (without feeling like I was having to put on a big song and dance to convince him) that I told him I wish he would wake me up if that's when he's finally interested. After that conversation, I had basically expressed how frustrated I was to realize he was basically letting off all his steam alone, so by the time he got back to a-very-interested-me the following afternoon, his level of desire was just moderate.

Now becoming more educated in the subtitles of loving, thanks largely to your writings, I wonder if it was wrong of me to be angry. Would being deprived of sexual action for a day really make him want it more the next? Does masturbation really work like a sexual chill-pill for the 24 hours after he finishes?

After much communication he's been getting a lot better at just saying 'yes' when nature calls and spending time with me more spontaneously. Finally it doesn't have to be only when the sun goes down, two hours after eating, only when no one would call us, and all that other ridiculousness his anxiety conjured. We love doing everything together (or giving the other a show) but is there any benefit to apologizing and encouraging him to do it alone? Or should he save his energy for time with me?

Thank you very much for your wisdom,
A Fantasy Writer

Dear L,

It would be good for you to recognize that masturbation is quite different from sex with a person. We get to focus on ourselves exclusively instead of always worrying or considering our partner. Since your hubby was deprived of childhood masturbation, he might need some time to catch up on his fantasy life. We really can't fully fantasize when we are with a lover. So don't bother to apologize but let him know he can masturbate whenever he wants to. So can you.

Don't make the mistake of expecting him to have your same appetite for partner sex. I don't believe that a person masturbating drains off sexual desire to have sex with another person. Quite the opposite. My husband never masturbated so he was a premature ejaculator. Married couples need to give each other time alone or they will exhaust their sex energy constantly wanting to get one or the other to do what they want. Love has the ability to let go.

Dr. Betty