Hi Yana,
My boyfriend and I have been together for a year. Up until a couple of months ago, I was extremely satisfied with our sex life. He wanted me all the time and would initiate sex at least one to three times daily.
Recently, we moved in together and it seems the spark has faded. We’re having sex less and I find myself left unwanted and horny. I know I can initiate sex myself, but I’m shy and don’t know what to do!
I talked to him about it and he said that he was initiating so much it made him feel less wanted and that I should “own it when I want sex.” A completely flaccid penis is intimidating to me because I fear feeling rejected if I can’t get him hard.
I know hard-ons aren’t always going to happen and that often it’s due to other factors, but I would still appreciate some tips on how to seduce my man and let him know I want sex.
— Seeking Seduction Instruction
Why Hello Seeking Seduction,
If distance makes the heart grow fonder, living separately can also make our hard-ons grow harder; moving in together can change the landscapes of our sexual routines.
When you move in with your mate you get to see their beautiful face last thing at night and first thing in the morning. But you also become extra dialed into other things — like how many times a day (and for how long) they go to the bathroom. Living together is an intimate situation to say the least.
This adjustment period is normal. A year together and moving in: Really, this ebb is right on schedule. So how do we get that flow going?
First — stop fearing the flaccid! You can’t expect your partner’s penis to always be at full attention in your presence — even if that’s the kind of attention you deserve. It just isn’t how the cards fall, biologically and practically.
Just as women have been shamed into thinking that the wetness of their vaginas is an accurate measure of how attracted they are to their partners, the strength of a man’s boner has been used as a yardstick of sexual excitement.
Boners come (hehe) and go sometimes spontaneously, sometimes due to sexual arousal, and sometimes they just can’t get up (literally) to speed with a man’s mental state.
If you’re waiting to see a bulge in your babe’s jeans before you make any moves at all, you might be waiting around a lot more than either of you would like to.
Tell your boyfriend that you associate the strength of his erection with how much he desires you, that you take a limp dick as a rejection stamp. Then discuss ways he can help break this association like verbally telling you how turned on he is, even if his sausage seems to be saying otherwise.
Seduction strategies vary in sexiness depending on the person being seduced. Personally, my greatest game is the I-have-no-game: When I want to have sex with someone, I tell them flat-out what I want to do with them and how. This seduction strategy works for me because it works for both me and my partner: it makes me feel sexy to be blunt about banging and it makes him feel sexy to hear exactly what I desire. Sometimes this “sexchange” starts in-person or sometimes it’s via text messages. Sexting can be a great place to start verbalizing desires for shy folks.
Exchange fantasies with your boyfriend so you can get a good idea of exactly what it is that makes him — and you — hot. It’s hard to feel seductively confident when you’re just randomly guessing someone’s turn-ons: Why perform a complicated striptease if what he really wants is to watch porn with you?
He’s asking you to “own it,” so make him give it to you by starting a conversation: “I wanna [bleep] you til your [bleep] is [bleeping]. What do you want me to do to make that happen?”
Once you’ve co-built a repertoire of how to talk about what really turns you both on, your seduction confidence — and maybe even his you-know — will skyrocket.•
Yana Tallon-Hicks is a pleasure-positive sex writer and educator living in the Pioneer Valley. She has a website bursting with sex advice, resources, and workshops at yanatallonhicks.com.
