Ask Isadora: Talking To Strangers

* I am a fairly good looking guy, nothing special but no freak. Twice last week I approached two good looking women, once in a coffee shop and once in the grocery. I was polite. I tried to start a conversation with each of them by introducing myself and saying that I would like to talk to her. Both times I got rude responses. What am I doing wrong?
Didn’t your mama tell you not to talk to strangers? If not, perhaps their mama did. Walking up to a stranger in a non-social setting the way you did feels threatening to many women. Your introduction also sounds like you’re trying to sell them something. (You are – yourself.) In general, first catching someone’s eye and exchanging a smile can give permission to talk to a stranger. Coming at them out of the blue with no tacit permission given is an intrusion. You could look like Brad Pitt and still get the cold shoulder. It was your approaching them that was rude, not their response.
* Have you ever heard of a fetish like mine? I am attracted to women with wide nostrils. I look for pictures of them in all sorts of magazines, not necessarily porn.  Am a weird?
Well, yours is not as common a fascination in our culture as some other body bits and pieces but each to his own taste. When you think that a woman experiencing passionate feelings will often have flared nostrils, your fascination and its association is understandable.
* I am a married woman, happily married. My one sorrow is that I have been unable to experience the type of sheet shredding moaning and groaning passionate peaks often shown in films. Do you think there might be something wrong with me or my husband or with what we’re doing or how we’re doing it?
Since I have no information on your private life how can I possibly assess its efficacy? I will tell you that arousal and climaxes are very much like sneezes. Some people give dainty little kitten sounds and others bellow; some sneeze once and others in series of several ker-choos. Sneeze patterns are set by nature but everyone can learn to modify them somewhat. The same is true of orgasms. You can learn to be noisier, for instance, simply by practicing letting out sounds. Learn to be more fully reactive simply by letting go and moving a bit. Often these initially awkward changes in your typical behavior can be practiced solo until they become more natural to you. You might also give some thought to any innovations you might like to try, changing time, place and activities for your love making so that it never becomes boring and, in fact, might become wildly exciting. Whether or not you tear up the bed linens in your new found expressiveness is up to you.
* I overheard some teenagers on the bus recently giggling about a guy they referred to as an anteater. Is that some new sexual slang? If it is, what is it?
Slang changes daily among teens but I’d bet this one is not particularly new. It used to be, and probably still is, that circumcised penises were referred to as helmet heads and uncircumcised as anteaters for obvious reasons. In most parts of the United States anteaters are becoming more common and are unlikely to, um, stand out.
 * I am a fairly good looking guy, nothing special but no freak. Twice last week I approached two good looking women, once in a coffee shop and once in the grocery. I was polite. I tried to start a conversation with each of them by introducing myself and saying that I would like to talk to her. Both times I got rude responses. What am I doing wrong?
Didn’t your mama tell you not to talk to strangers? If not, perhaps their mama did. Walking up to a stranger in a non-social setting the way you did feels threatening to many women. Your introduction also sounds like you’re trying to sell them something. (You are – yourself.) In general, first catching someone’s eye and exchanging a smile  can give permission to talk to a stranger. Coming at them out of the blue with no tacit permission given is an intrusion. You could look like Brad Pitt and still get the cold shoulder. It was your approaching them that was rude, not their response.
* Have you ever heard of a fetish like mine? I am attracted to women with wide nostrils. I look for pictures of them in all sorts of magazines, not necessarily porn. Am a weird?
Well, yours is not as common a fascination in our culture as some other body bits and pieces but each to his own taste. When you think that a woman experiencing passionate feelings will often have flared nostrils, your fascination and its association is understandable.
* I am a married woman, happily married. My one sorrow is that I have been unable to experience the type of sheet shredding moaning and groaning passionate peaks often shown in films. Do you think there might be something wrong with me or my husband or with what we’re doing or how we’re doing it?
Since I have no information on your private life how can I possibly assess its efficacy? I will tell you that arousal and climaxes are very much like sneezes. Some people give dainty little kitten sounds and others bellow; some sneeze once and others in series of several ker-choos. Sneeze patterns are set by nature but everyone can learn to modify them somewhat. The same is true of orgasms. You can learn to be noisier, for instance, simply by practicing letting out sounds. Learn to be more fully reactive simply by letting go and moving a bit. Often these initially awkward changes in your typical behavior can be practiced solo until they become more natural to you. You might also give some thought to any innovations you might like to try, changing time, place and activities for your love making so that it never becomes boring and, in fact, might become wildly exciting. Whether or not you tear up the bed linens in your new found expressiveness is up to you.
* I overheard some teenagers on the bus recently giggling about a guy they referred to as an anteater. Is that some new sexual slang? If it is, what is it?
Slang changes daily among teens but I’d bet this one is not particularly new. It used to be, and probably still is, that circumcised penises were referred to as helmet heads and uncircumcised as anteaters for obvious reasons. In most parts of the United States anteaters are becoming more common and are unlikely to, um, stand out.