How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

My husband and I were out at a restaurant several days ago. Midway through dinner, he took my hand and put it under the table. I felt my eyes get wide as I realized what was happening.

When he put my hand down there, I felt his hard-on, which he had exposed. He then asked me to give him a hand job (fortunately the tablecloth obstructed the view). I wanted to avoid getting caught, so I complied and got him off quickly. When we got to the car he said it was the most thrilling sexual experience he’s had in ages and wants to do it again. Now I’m afraid to go anywhere with him that might afford him the opportunity. What can I do other than refuse to go places where he might try it?

—Hand Job Horror

Dear Hand Job Horror,

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It’s completely reasonable for a number of reasons to not want to repeat that, but you don’t specify any in your letter. Just make sure you can articulate exactly why you want to avoid this situation moving forward. “It makes me uncomfortable to engage in public sexual behavior, which could lead to negative consequences,” for example, is more than justified rationale. “It makes me uncomfortable,” is more than justified rationale, period, but it does help to have an explanation to share with one’s partner so that you can be fully understood and so that the conversation about this doesn’t become an ongoing one, with your husband regularly bringing it up/begging you to participate. If you need to take some time to work out exactly what about that you didn’t like, do so. And then get back to him. And if he presses, indeed tell him that you will start to refuse going into public spaces with him. You aren’t into it and you shouldn’t have to do anything that you aren’t into.

If there are semi-public alternatives, like a swingers club or sex parties, that you’d be more into, maybe suggest those. I don’t know if they’d fly with him—likely part of the thrill was indeed the risk of getting caught, which means you might be squarely at odds with your husband here. But that’s too bad for him. He wants something, you don’t, your refusal to consent is where this fantasy is blocked from becoming a reality (at least with your participation). Sucks for him, but them’s the breaks.

—Rich

More Advice From Slate

I have been married to a woman for years. Recently, she revealed that what she told me about her first marriage had been a complete lie. Worse, to me, she refused to have a rational conversation about it—either together or in therapy. It turns out that rather than one affair with a married man at the end of a nine-year marriage, she had four affairs with different men across the nine years. I have been shaken to the core. How can I trust her?

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