I’m a straight woman in my late 20s and I have a problem and it’s your fault.

Let me back up. I feel great about sex—conceptually, personally, interpersonally, in practice, all of it. This is largely your doing, as I’ve been reading your column for almost 15 years and your perspective was integral in helping me avoid the hang-up landmines that littered my religious upbringing. In fact, the only residue of religious judginess that stuck around as an adult was a sense of getting away with something illicit... which I like!

Here’s the issue: I am so well-adjusted that it’s hurting my otherwise fantastic sex life. I just don’t feel like there’s anything naughty about having sex anymore; sans the cultural baggage, anything one does in the bedroom is just consenting adults making each other feel great. Which is wonderful, but what’s dirty (in the good way) about that? Even the sense of “getting away with it” is gone since the boyfriend and I live in our own place and no longer have to fuck on the sly to avoid scandalizing our respective roommates.

How do I get that feeling back? Please don’t tell me we should bang in public, we already do that sometimes and it’s great fun but hasn’t done the trick.

Customary Acronym Signoff

Well, what would make you feel transgressive? I’m pretty okay with sex, despite my own relatively conservative/religious upbringing, and my husband and I still manage to get up/down to things that make me feel illicit and dirty. Surely you and your BF can come up with some things that make you feel the same? I'm talking fun and consensual things, of course.—Dan

That's the thing! I can't figure out how to make the things we do feel transgressive. (My pervy friend says I should ask what you and Terry do to feel transgressive, but I'm much more polite than that.)

My boyfriend and I are not particularly kinky (by standards set from a decade and a half of avid Savage Love readership) despite our honest efforts to try it out, but we're certainly not boring - our sex is enthusiastic, acrobatic, frequent, and loving. He's wonderful and thoughtful and empathetic and giving and I do my damnedest to be as GGG as he is. (On top of that he's a firefighter, has a six pack, fucks like a champion, and is the most compassionate and creative human being I have ever met... I lucked out.) I just miss that naughty feeling that is eluding me because I have this obnoxiously reasonable notion that everything we're doing is good and natural and there's nothing terribly transgressive about good and natural things. My acquired ability to remove the horrible baggage society and Catholicism attached to sex has gone a bit too far - and has somehow brought a blowjob to the level of a back massage: an intimate giving of pleasure to someone I love, a fine thing, but nothing spicy. I'm really stymied as to how I can change my feelings on the matter.

I should also say that I didn't really think you were going to write back to me, or I'd have written to you more like a person than a persona (as it were). You are the bee's fucking knees, Mr. Savage. I have a huge amount of respect for you and I truly do credit you for a lifetime of joyful sex that the goddamn Catholics tried to make sure I'd never have - along with a million other ways a healthy attitude toward sex, sexuality, sexual orientation, and relationships improves the lives of us all and brings humanity a few steps further toward acting decent for once. Thank you so much for everything that you do.—CAS

Am I supposed to take your word for that six pack? Or are you going to send a picture?

Your sex life sounds amazing and enviable. Lean into it, like that rich Facebook lady says, and enjoy it without feeling like you have to feel naughty, or that your missing out because you have no interests that could be classed as kinks and/or transgressions. (You know… in a world where everyone is kinky, your enthusiastic, acrobatic, frequent and loving vanilla sex could be considered totally transgressive and kinky as hell.)

And while I can’t share details of my sex life with you, per my prenup with Terry, I can share this: We’ve evolved—like the president on gay marriage, like the birdies on the Galápagos Islands. Our sex life has morphed over the years, our roles have shifted and then shifted back again, and new things/interests/people have come into/all over our lives. We did it by keeping our minds and lines of communication open. There are things we do now that would shock the guys we were then and there are things we did then that the guys we are now still enjoy doing.

So my advice to you: Enjoy the sex you’re having now, be open to having different kinds of sex down the road—with him, or with him and the odd special guest star.—Dan

You know, I've got this absolutely fantastic picture of him—he's naked, hard, beautifully muscled, doing a handstand. Doubly impressive as it's a selfie—thank Odin for the floor-to-ceiling mirrors in our bedroom. But he, like Terry, prefers some things kept private. I'm afraid you'll have to use your imagination. :)

Thank you so much for your time and thoughts on the matter, Dan. A better sense of perspective is exactly what I needed.—CAS