{"id":246689,"date":"2025-10-23T18:18:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:18:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/246689\/"},"modified":"2025-10-23T18:18:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-23T18:18:11","slug":"i-lied-to-my-wife-about-why-ive-been-dodging-sex-im-not-sure-she-can-handle-the-truth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/246689\/","title":{"rendered":"I lied to my wife about why I’ve been dodging sex. I’m not sure she can handle the truth."},"content":{"rendered":"

How to Do It is Slate\u2019s sex advice column.\u00a0Have a question?\u00a0Send it to Jessica and Rich here<\/a>.\u00a0It\u2019s anonymous!<\/p>\n

Dear How to Do It,<\/p>\n

Hear me out, I know this sounds insane\u2026<\/p>\n

But ever since I walked in on my wife douching in the bathroom two weeks ago, my desire for sex has evaporated like rain in a desert.\u00a0You simply can\u2019t unsee some things.\u00a0She\u2019s beginning to wonder what\u2019s going on. I\u2019ve told her there\u2019s been a lot going on at work, but I can\u2019t keep putting her off forever.\u00a0Help!<\/p>\n

\u2014My Eyes Have Been Sullied<\/p>\n

\n Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don\u2018t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.\n <\/p>\n

Jessica Stoya: Why is the wife douching?<\/p>\n

Rich Juzwiak: Well, that\u2019s a good question.<\/p>\n

Jessica: I cannot deal with the writer\u2019s actual question until we address why the wife is douching. The writer is not in a position to give us answers to any questions, and it\u2019s not really their place to say, \u201cHey, wife, we haven\u2019t had sex in two weeks. And now randomly I\u2019m asking, why were you douching?\u201d But please, don\u2019t douche.<\/p>\n

Rich: It seems like one of the most straightforward, unhealthy products of capitalism made under the guise of being for women\u2019s reproductive health.<\/p>\n

Jessica: In very rare circumstances, there might be a short-term, specific medical use for it. But the douche as a cleanliness product, just for the sake of it, is not good for you. I cannot walk past the word douche without a public service announcement.<\/p>\n

Rich: Every expert that I\u2019ve ever seen talk about it has said not to do it. And obviously, anal douching is a different thing. You\u2019re supposed to do that with clean water, and that\u2019s strictly for the purpose of making one\u2019s asshole not shitty during anal sex. So that\u2019s a different kind of thing.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny that you bring it up, because my question after reading this was, what\u2019s so traumatic about douching? What if this guy is super knowledgeable about women\u2019s health, and it\u2019s the very fact that she\u2019s doing this? He can\u2019t believe she would do that to her body.<\/p>\n

Jessica: He\u2019s like, \u201cOh, my God, until two weeks ago, I thought my wife was a mature adult with functional judgment skills, and it turns out now I can\u2019t look at her the same way.\u201d That is a funny scenario. I think it\u2019s more likely that he is grossed out by the fact of her having a body.<\/p>\n

Rich: Right, it seems like that would be the case.<\/p>\n

Jessica: In a recent Dear Prudence column<\/a>, there was an ideologically body-positive woman, but she was struggling to connect that ideology in practical terms to how she thinks about her own body. And Jen\u00e9e told her to look at people with bodies similar to yours being people, doing things everybody does, until that feels normalized. I think that might be useful here. Read some subreddits related to women\u2019s health. Just walk right up to the thing that you never really had to realize before, and kind of rub your own face in it a little bit. Hear about some of the gross stuff. Actually, that might completely backfire.<\/p>\n

Rich: It can be shocking to actually consider the full extent of your partner\u2019s humanity and existence in a body, but I think it speaks to a rift in intimacy, that you\u2019d be able to have sex with this person and theoretically want to please them and know their body well enough to do that, but then shrink away when you\u2019re presented with another reality of their body. The fact that, for whatever reason, she thought her vagina was not up to snuff in terms of freshness, and somehow, this is going to send him into a spiral.<\/p>\n

Jessica: Women are people. I\u2019ve never heard of anyone losing their capacity to see a woman as erotic because of douching, but I think that\u2019s only because most people our age got told really early on, \u201cDo not douche.\u201d But I\u2019ve had male partners who didn\u2019t want to wait until my period was over to have sex, but had to do it with the lights off and the windows open because if they were visually or olfactorily confronted with the reality that there is menstrual fluid, which has a coppery smell. They would be squicked out and disgusted.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve also had male partners who are completely fascinated by tampons or menstrual cups, not in an erotic way. There\u2019s nothing arousing about it, but it seems to be the same thing as for me when I saw a male partner shave their face the first few times. There\u2019s that curiosity. The way we teach sex education, even in the areas where people get relatively good sex education, leaves young men severely in the dark about how women\u2019s bodies operate. And I do leave space for the fact that giving birth is pretty traumatic for everyone. So I have a lot of empathy for the men who watch their wife give birth and then are like, \u201cI\u2019ve got a lot to work through.\u201d But these everyday experiences are different.<\/p>\n

Rich: And that aspect of birth is a documented phenomenon. There are a lot of people who have that reaction.<\/p>\n

Jessica: \u00a0Yeah, so that aside, we\u2019re talking about common, everyday occurrences. When you\u2019re ovulating, the completely healthy fluids coming out of your vulva are sometimes milky or cloudy. Menstrual blood, it\u2019s a thing, it smells like copper, it\u2019s part of having a body. Tampons, they go in, they come out, and they sit in the trash. I mean, it\u2019s aggressive to leave a bloody menstrual cup sitting on the side of the sink where everyone\u2019s toothbrushes are. I can understand how that\u2019s a lot for someone. A tampon in the trash can, that\u2019s another story.
It shouldn\u2019t be on the woman to have to manage all of these shocked and grossed-out feelings. It\u2019s like, \u201cI\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m basically an animal with very little body hair.\u201d You\u2019ve got to come to terms with that if you want to have sex with women, marry women, and live with women.<\/p>\n

Rich: I think that coming to terms with it is actually the process here. You just kind of have to allow yourself to process these feelings and to understand them and just go through it. It has been two weeks for this guy who saw this thing that traumatized him for whatever reason, so it\u2019s early.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Jessica Stoya
\n I Caught My Husband in a Lie Before We Got Married, But I Let It Go. Now It Still Haunts Me.
\n Read More\n <\/p>\n

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My Girlfriend Begs Me to Have Sex Every Time I Come Home From a Certain Activity. There\u2019s No Way Anyone Is Actually Into This.
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I\u2019m Getting a Big Inheritance. I Hate It.
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Help! My Family Can Responsibly Handle This Part of Thanksgiving Dinner. But My In-Laws Cannot Be Trusted.
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<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve Been Covering for My Sick Colleague for Years. Then One Night, He Drunkenly Confessed the Truth.
\n <\/a><\/p>\n

If he walked in on her doing it, she\u2019s aware of that. So if the problem is that he doesn\u2019t want to tell her, but she keeps asking, you can tell her. She may find it strange, confusing, or offensive, but it is the reason, and this is a thing that is beyond you; you\u2019re not controlling this. You can be honest about it. Maybe then she\u2019ll have suggestions or she\u2019ll be able to kind of hold your hand, even if you don\u2019t quite deserve it, and actually help you through it. Or you\u2019ll be on your own. And you know what? Give it a few more weeks, give it a month, and you\u2019ll get horny one day, and that will probably be enough to overcome this issue. You just might need to metabolize this and move on.<\/p>\n

Jessica: When it comes to explaining to the wife what\u2019s going on, the opening of their letter, \u201cI know this sounds insane,\u201d that\u2019s great. Stay in that lane. Own that it is. The writer should own that they are having a reaction that is their problem. They want to let their wife know what\u2019s going on. If the wife offers to be supportive, great. But if at any point the writer frames douching as disgusting or any other facet of just living in a body with internal genitalia and reproductive organs, and the wife leaves them, that is the writer\u2019s fault. If it blows back on you because you\u2019re acting like it\u2019s disgusting to be human, then that\u2019s on you.<\/p>\n

Rich: So just choose your words carefully and communicate effectively.<\/p>\n

More Advice From Slate<\/p>\n

I have explored some anal play with my girlfriend in the past\u2014but eventually, I stopped it because of my own insecurities. Not because I did not enjoy it, but because speaking freely, I really did like it. Well, I want her to peg me but I fear that I\u2019ve missed my opportunity\u2026<\/a><\/p>\n

Get the latest from Prudie and our columnists in your inbox each weekday, plus special bonus letters on Saturdays.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How to Do It is Slate\u2019s sex advice column.\u00a0Have a question?\u00a0Send it to Jessica and Rich here.\u00a0It\u2019s anonymous!…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246690,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[3005,97,14110,37512,6843],"class_list":{"0":"post-246689","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-advice","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-sex","11":"tag-single-q","12":"tag-slate-plus"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246689\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}