Ask Isadora #14-08 : What's Possible

* What are some possible outlets for an aroused person who can not have sex or who has no one to have sex with?

Being sexual with oneself, masturbation, is always safe and available for males and females with sexual urges. Often one can be sexual with a partner without having sexual intercourse. There is nothing unsafe about mutual masturbation. If all else fails and masturbation is restricted from your repertoire, as I have written many times before, there is always the tried and true exhaustion from physical exercise and/or cold showers. The latter has always seemed to me a miserable substitute for a self-induced orgasm and it would have to be a pretty punitive mind set that would recommend it.

* Have you ever heard of a guy having a penis that’s too big? Is that possible?

Of course. The penis can be too big for his liking, for his partner’s preference, for his pants, or too big for a comfortable fit with a particular partner without additional lubrication. It’s never too big to use for urination. And it rarely, if ever, can be too big for use in intercourse – vaginal, oral or anal. A large penis needs to be used carefully and slowly, with plenty of lubrication and communication . Like most everything else in life, owning a big penis has its up sides and its down sides.

*We are a couple, two gay men together for more than ten years. My partner comes from a loud, hard drinking, hard partying, quarrelsome ethnic clan. I am a rather buttoned-up WASP. In some cases, not only do opposites attract, they, we, positively thrive. His family is making plans to rent a large vacation home this summer and want to include us in the throng of relatives planning to spend up to two weeks there. The thought of it makes my teeth curl! My whole summer vacation is just too much to ask of a human being and I refuse. I work very hard during the year and I have always been a good sport about holiday dinners through the years. I just don’t enjoy the company of his family but have endured these events for my partner’s sake. This is going to be a major problem for my partner and a huge insult to his family if I just flatly I won’t go, so, do you have any suggestions for a way out of this?

Do you have any family of your own? Can you invent an occasion, a funeral or a celebration, that requires your presence there for at least part of the time? It seems like a good compromise if you spend a week with yours (real or imagined) while he spends a week with his and then you both go off for a week on your own together. If that won’t fly, if they know you’re an orphan, for instance, perhaps a work crises, a case or special project that requires your attention just that very week or perhaps some planned minor surgery. I’m afraid anything less than that kind of emergency would seem like an insult, if not to your partner (who should well understand), then to his family. One last thought: wait until the house rental; reservations are firmly made and then, in a version of the “Oh, I planned to wash my hair on that night” ploy, regretfully announce you and your partner’s own vacation plans – something exotic like an already booked nonrefundable cruise to the Greek Islands. And then book it!