I have a mentally disabled cousin who I haven’t figured out how to help. He’s lived for more than 40 years in the same nursing home in a small, conservative town. His mental age is about 8, there are other mental-illness issues, and he has some physical problems. He is now in his late 60s. He has always enjoyed dressing up as a woman, but given that he’s in a Christian nursing home, he must keep it fairly secret. He doesn’t want to move from his home of so many years. He periodically calls me to tell me about a dress he’s purchased or his monthly therapy sessions where he’s permitted to dress up, and I’m uncomfortable with the sexual vibe of the conversations. I would like him to have a sexual outlet, but one that doesn’t involve me. Any ideas?
She Knows It’s Really Tough

Nope.

And staging some sort of intervention now—well, the effort seems about four decades late. Even if you could find a new living situation for your cousin, SKIRT, your cousin doesn’t want to move. He seems to like where he lives, he gets ...

I’m a 24-year-old straight, married female. I have been religiously reading your column in The Portland Mercury since I was 16. Thank you for explaining things that my parents wouldn’t and for helping me clear the hurdles of adolescence!

I turn to you now for advice. Five months ago, I married the man of my dreams. He was driven, hardworking, loving, and happy. We had amazing, cosmic, and connected sex, and we enjoyed pleasing each other. We have been together for a little over a year. I realize now that it was WAY too soon to get married, but I let my romantic side get the best of me, and so here we are. We are miserable. Now when it comes to sex, it’s the furthest thing from my mind. When it does happen, it’s very one-sided. I rarely get off, and if I do, it’s on my own after he finishes because “it’s too much work” to get me off. That’s problem one.

Problem two is that on our wedding night, he broke his foot and couldn’t work as a result. After his foot healed, he quit his job. He told ...

I am a 23-year-old straight male. My ex-girlfriend and I started dating in high school, when we were both 17, and continued dating until I broke up with her the summer after our freshman year in college because things felt too serious. We continued to have sex, but I blocked out all my feelings for her, while she was open about still wanting to be with me. She started dating someone else sophomore year. I realized then that I still wanted to be with her, and I broke down emotionally and made both our lives difficult while she was dating this new guy. I was a very unattractive person then.I also found out other details by snooping. I know that during the time we dated, she faked orgasms with me. She didn’t have one with me until she introduced a vibrator the year I was having emotionless sex with her after the breakup. This made me feel inadequate. Since then, we have forgiven each other and tried several times to rekindle our romantic relationship. Unfortunately, while for me there is a sexual attraction, she says she is no longer attracted to me. I’m sensitive, fashionable, and artistic ...

DEAR READERS: Last week was made of problems. The bombing of the Boston Marathon, the explosion that leveled a small town in Texas, the rising tide of anti-gay violence in France, the North Koreans being North Korean. And when I sat down to write this week’s column—while the manhunt was still under way for the second bomber in Boston—it occurred to me that the last thing the world needs right now is more problems. So instead of the usual sex problems, STI problems, CPOS problems, and DTMFA problems, this week I’m only running letters from people who don’t really have problems. Because we could all use a break.

No problem here. I’m a straight 36-year-old guy. My wife has always been great about indulging my kinks—some femdom role play, lots of OTK spankings, rare D/s three-ways—so when she announced at age 34 that she had a kink of her own, I regarded it as my mission to make it happen. We just got back from a trip to see a safe and trustworthy friend in Los Angeles who “paid” me to have sex with my wife. (He put 20 $100 bills ...

I am uncircumcised, and the opening at the end of my foreskin is not large enough for the head of my penis to pass through. This means my foreskin doesn’t pull back when I get an erection. The Internet says this is a condition called “phimosis,” and a lot of medical websites recommend circumcision. I’m not super-excited by that idea. I don’t have any pain or difficulty with sex or urination, and I’ve never had any health problems related to being uncircumcised. The foreskin isn’t stuck or fused to the glans—the hole is just small. Is there a safe, non-surgical way to enlarge the opening in the foreskin?
Dick Hole Panic

“Tell Dick Hole Panic not to panic,” said Stephen H. King, M.D., a urologist in Washington State and my new go-to guy for all questions dick. “Phimosis occurs in an uncircumcised penis when a circular ring of the foreskin becomes scarred, often from prior infection, inflammation, or trauma. This scar prevents the normally elastic tissue of the foreskin from fully retracting to expose the head of the penis.”

Roughly one in a hundred men have phimosis, said Dr. King, “and depending on ...

I’m a gay man who has been seeing a devout Christian gay guy for one year. We have a great relationship. We have many of the same interests and respect each other’s feelings and beliefs. However, I am a Catholic who is not that religious, and he is an Orthodox Christian.

Some of his friends oppose gay marriage and think that being gay is immoral, and they are against our relationship. Since I am not a devout Christian, his friends say we should not get married. Other friends say he should not be gay at all, and that God does not love him because he is gay. I refuse to hang out with his friends because I think that they are narrow-minded morons. Am I wrong for thinking this?

Sadly, he sometimes thinks that God really does hate him because he’s gay. I try to reassure him that God does not hate him. But he feels this way because of what his “good friends” say. I think he should dump these assholes. He is often upset by conversations he has with one of his friends in particular, who insists that God does not approve of him being ...

I am trying to understand some sexual fantasies I have. They involve having sex with a woman who has a penis. Sometimes I fantasize that my wife grew a penis. The fantasies started when we first tried pegging a few years ago. We recently had our first child, and can no longer find the time for such kinky sex. These transsexual fantasies have caused a large strain in our relationship, and I don’t understand why I am having them or what I should do about them. I do not want to engage in a relationship with another person, I just want to know if it’s normal to have these fantasies.
Confused But Hopeful

Normal? No, most men don’t fantasize about their wives sprouting penises, CBH, so your fantasy isn’t normative. But no one’s sexual fantasy is. Fantasies are subjective and personal. Some are more common than others—a desire to be spanked, for instance—but even the most common sexual fantasies appeal only to small subsets of people.

Here’s what you should do about your fantasies for now: Shut up and fantasize about them. Your sex life has taken a hit because you’re ...

My brother is 22 years old and mentally ill with social anxiety on the scale of agoraphobia (officially diagnosed). He’s made significant progress in the past few years, but he’s stuck on the fact that he’s a virgin and is convinced that he’s not going to make any real social progress until that’s no longer a fact. His particular problem makes it impossible to reason with him—he’s a little Asperger’s-y—and he is convinced that he will only be able to pursue a job, have a social life, and tackle other obstacles after he loses his virginity. Financially, it would be easy for me to drive him to Nevada and eliminate the virginity issue. He’s asked our mom to do so. My family isn’t hung up on “purity” where sex and virginity are concerned, so we’re open to this. I don’t have any illusions that this will solve his problems, but my mom and I are hopeful that it would eliminate an excuse that’s keeping him from taking positive steps forward. Should I offer to take him? Or force him to sort it out on his own ...

DEAR READERS: I’m off this week. To tide all of your hot and/or kinky and/or sore asses over, here’s a column I wrote 15 years ago. Some newer readers might’ve missed this column when it originally appeared—some of you who were still in grade school, diapers, or amniotic sacs back in 1998—so I’m rerunning it now because I still get questions about “gerbiling” on a daily basis. —Dan

We were having a little office debate about “gerbiling.” How does it work? Do all gay men do this? Does Richard Gere? Does the animal get shoved up the anus with a toilet-paper roll only to suffocate seconds later? Is it the scratching or the act of killing an animal that gets people off? Why? Can’t this cause serious damage? What gives?
Curious Coworkers

Every day, my mail contains at least three questions about “gerbiling.” In the eight years I’ve been writing this column, I have never addressed the gerbil issue, but now, this week and this week only, I am breaking my silence. Clip and save this column, for I will never discuss gerbils again. Ahem. To begin, I would like ...

I’m an actor in New York City. A lot of people think actors are whores, but last week I almost became one. I responded to a casting call for a film project called Sniff. The ad—on Playbill’s website—called for two male actors to film a short scene. The pay was $100 for a day’s work. I was emailed the scene to study. It starts with two male roommates chatting on a couch. The bigger, more muscular roommate confronts the smaller, scrawnier roommate about his obsession with socks. Two pages later, the smaller roommate is being ordered to sniff, lick, and caress the larger roommate’s feet. The scene ends with the smaller roommate being forced to hold the bigger roommate’s big toes in the corners of his mouth while smiling for the camera. Write a screenplay and hire actors—is this something foot fetishists do to make low-budget softcore porn? I’m not a hater of fetishists, but it is a little strange to see something like this in a casting ad.
Freaked-Out Oblivious Thespian

P.S. The audition was surprisingly normal. I wasn’t asked to remove my clothes or lick any feet ...

My girlfriend and I read your column religiously, and I have you to thank for making me comfortable enough with my kinks to tell her about my interest in BDSM. She is very GGG and has indulged all my kinky fantasies and discovered some of her own. Our latest adventure has her locking up my dick in a CB-6000 male-chastity device. The play/sex has been super-fun so far, but we want to be aware of any health and safety concerns, specifically damage to my penis.

We’ve had the device for almost a week, and I’ve been doing a ton of research. There is no shortage of information on proper hygiene and cleaning while locked, and the effects of infrequent ejaculation/orgasm denial. What we’re most concerned about is not the effects of not coming, but whether restricting my erections with a chastity device can cause nerve damage, erectile dysfunction, or other issues. Should I be concerned about having my erections constricted by the device while being teased or wearing it overnight? (My research tells me that in REM sleep, the typical male will get three to five erections.)

We plan on taking off the device for ...

I am writing about a friend. By all appearances, he is straight. However, on more than one occasion, he has gotten drunk and tried to hook up with a transvestite or a person who could have been one. In one instance, he went to a club and was approached by a really masculine-seeming girl who proceeded to give him head. My friend, in his drunken state, reached into her pants and felt for a pussy only after she started giving him head. On a trip to Las Vegas, he drunkenly picked up someone who I was told looked like “Kevin Garnett in a wig” and was very obviously a man. He tried to take this person back to his hotel, but friends put a stop to it. I just received a message from a friend who is with him on a trip to Europe, who said that he just tried the same thing again with yet another manly looking transvestite type. Again, my friend was stopped before he did anything he might regret. I can understand if these cases happened with transvestites who looked like real women. It’s easy to fool someone when he’s drunk. However, the situations ...

A PROGRAMMING NOTE: I hosted a live taping of the Savage Lovecast in Seattle on Valentine’s Day, and it went great—thanks to all who came (especially to the five boys who left with butt plugs in their butts)—but I made the mistake of having a drink or five afterward, and I’m so fucking hungover right now that I shouldn’t be sitting upright, much less giving advice. But deadlines are deadlines. So here we go…

I’m a 31-year-old genderqueer in Brooklyn with a large family on Long Island. My only sister got engaged 48 hours ago, and she’s moving fast on planning the wedding. I have two questions.

Number one question: I texted my sister the only date I wasn’t available in the next two years, which is Columbus Day weekend 2013. I have my 10-year college reunion, which I’ve been organizing. My sister texted me back that they picked this Columbus Day weekend for the wedding even though they have no idea if the places they want will be booked up. It quickly came out that they didn’t check with anyone about potential conflicts. She wants me to be the ...

I’m a 37-year-old single father with a 14-year-old son. I’ve raised him on my own basically since birth, with help from some good friends and nearby family. Overall, he’s a good kid: gets decent grades, rarely gets in trouble. Our relationship isn’t perfect—I work a lot and he’s a teenager—but no major issues. Over the past year, however, I have become increasingly convinced that he is gay. I’ve found gay porn on his laptop (yes, I snoop; I pay the bill and I’m his dad), he’s shown zero interest in girls, and he has always been a tad effeminate, though I know that’s probably an unfair stereotype. I have no problem with gay people, and I support full equality for same-sex couples. And truly, if my son is gay, while I won’t pretend it’d be no big deal and not require a bit of mental adjustment, I’d love him and support him fully.

My son has a friend, let’s call him “Gomer,” who comes over often. Sometimes they’re here when I’m not, and often they’re alone together with the door closed. If ...

I’m a 27-year-old man in a two-year relationship with a 26-year-old woman. My last partner cheated and lied and did some unforgivable things. I wasn’t blameless—I stayed with her long after I realized it wasn’t working—but our relationship did unearth a kink. After I found out about her cheating, I got extremely turned on thinking about it. I never told her.

Enter my next girlfriend. We were together a few months before I brought up my kink. She was very accommodating (dirty talk about her cheating, making up stories about cheating) and then, after some months, she admitted that it was something she wanted to try in real life. I said I was okay with it as long as I had the option to pursue other partners as well. We agreed on some rules and gave it a shot. She set up a date through OKCupid and had sex with someone; I hooked up with an ex. Everything seemed to be turning out great. Then two weeks later, she got drunk and told me she had seen the OKCupid guy again without asking. I was so upset, I nearly broke up with her. Having the ...