I'm on hiatus while working on a manuscript for a new book. In the meantime, please enjoy these classic Savage Love letters pulled from previous columns. I will be back November 1st, when the book is finished. —Dan

Originally published October 9, 2008:

My boyfriend always goes soft after he penetrates me. He's come in me only a handful of times—and I'm a bottom! When it comes to oral, he doesn't have trouble staying hard. Even more curious: The guy is only 21! Can someone that young really have "erectile dysfunction"? We've tried cock rings, and they don't help: He can keep his hard-on for a little longer (enough time to get inside me without getting soft), but it doesn't take long for him to get soft again. Dan, what do you think is going on? He'll be super-hard when I'm sucking him off, then I'll start jerking him a bit, then he'll get inside me, and then a very short while later he's soft. Is there anything we can do? Does he have ED?

Lover Is Missing Poundings

My response after the jump...

Your boyfriend is hard during oral sex and when you jerk his cock, LIMP, and only loses his erection when he's in your ass or about to go in. Hmm. That doesn't sound like ED to me—there's no such thing as "act-specific ED"—but more like YBDLAS, or "your boyfriend doesn't like anal sex."

Your boyfriend may feel pressure to perform, LIMP, as being fucked is important to you. (Please tell me that he's coming inside a condom when he comes inside you.) And he may feel some pressure to conform. Anal sex among gay men has been elevated to the status of vaginal sex among straight men, LIMP, in that it's somehow become the defining sex act, despite the fact that roughly a quarter of all gay men don't enjoy and don't indulge in anal sex. Your boyfriend may be one of those guys, but he's too inhibited to tell you how he feels because, hey, it's buttfucking and he's gay and all gay men are buttfuckers and if he doesn't enjoy buttfucking then he's some sort of defective gay buttfucker.

Tell him he doesn't have to do it if he doesn't enjoy it and, for the time being at least, you're taking anal off the menu—lifting the pressure off his shoulders and dick. Focus on the stuff that works for him right now: oral and JO. And remember, LIMP, if he's coming in your mouth, he's still coming inside you.