I'm in a bit of a pickle. I am a 33-year-old hetero female in a monogamous relationship with a 30-year-old hetero male for about a year and a half. He is a wonderful person—kind, gentle, funny, intelligent, and, more importantly, thinks the same of me. We get along swimmingly except when it comes to sex. He has had issues with sex since his first time when he was 19. He can get it up, but has trouble maintaining an erection, and can only come very occasionally and only by his hand. This apparently has always been the case. I could probably deal with that, but my real problem is that in his haste to get to the performance, he bypasses foreplay and pays little attention to whether or not I'm getting turned on. Yes, I have brought this up and we have talked about. We both see a therapist regularly and so pay pretty close attention to our communication. We even did Sensate Focus for a few months. It helped a little bit at the time, but once we started having intercourse again, he slipped back in to his old ways. I have been very verbal with him about what I like and what turns me on, but it's like his anxiety and insecurities around sex trump everything else. He is good at oral sex and can make me come almost every time, but if I'm giving him oral, or if I want to be on top for a while, he quickly goes soft. I have had quite a bit of sex in my life and I feel like I want to be with someone that I can explore further with, not someone I have to school. On the other hand, I feel like a fool to give up such a great guy because of physical desire. And to further complicate matters, most everyone I talk to about this is downplaying the issue, so I don't know if I think it would be foolish because it would be foolish or if I'm being influenced by a social construct. Dan, please help!!

A Constantly Hungry Ethical Slut

Sexual compatibility is important and there’s nothing foolish about prioritizing it—there is, in fact, something deeply foolish about not prioritizing sexual compatibility and sexual satisfaction in a monogamous relationship. Your friends' comments are “a social construct,” i.e. the product of a deeply sex-negative culture that conspires to stuff two contradictory thoughts in our heads: sex is completely unimportant (how could you leave someone over something so trifling as sex?) and sex is profoundly important (seeking sexual satisfaction outside your relationship is the ultimate betrayal).

Give your boyfriend six months to start making progress on this problem. If his dick is up and down during sex, as some men's are, you can to work around that. If he needs to use his own hand to finish, as some men do, you can accept that this is just the way his dick works. But the rest of it gets better—he comes through with some foreplay, he successfully works toward getting his insecurities under control so you can mix it up a little, you'll continue to school him but he'll start to show some initiative—or you’re through.