My Sister Is Punishing Her Husband for Being “Terrible in Bed.” She’s Chosen the Cruelest Possible Way.

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 sister and I were having some wine last weekend when she let slip that she’s been having an affair because her husband is terrible in bed. Now I’m burdened with a life-altering secret. Do I need to tell my BIL, or is this a situation where it would be best if I pretend I never heard it?—Guilty SIL

You have definitely been put in a difficult situation, but your sister deserves your loyalty (unless she has done something to you that suggests otherwise). This is the kind of situation where you should hang back and not stir up drama. This affair may be fleeting, and it may ultimately have no bearing on your sister and her husband’s shared life. Of course there is the alternative possibility—this will torpedo her life—but I think you should let what will happen happen. Consider yet another scenario in which your sister decides to reveal this affair to her husband, and that in turn, leads to them opening up their relationship. Your interference could inject drama into a situation that might have otherwise resolved peacefully. It’s not worth the risk.

You can certainly implore your sister to confess, though holistically speaking, that might not even be necessary and either way, you’d be imposing your own value system onto your sister’s relationship. You can tell her that this information has put you in a tough spot and that you have wondered if you should reveal it to her husband. You can ask her not to talk about it further with you, as you find the information burdensome. But whatever happens with the relationship, your sister is still your sister. If she divorces her husband, the chances of him staying in your life are slim. If you go and reveal information that she told you in confidence, you may lose the relationship you have with your sister as well. Don’t risk that. It’s the more important relationship in question.

Get advice—submit a question!

Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t 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.

Thanks! Your question has been submitted.

Dear How To Do It,

Long time reader and first time writer here. My boyfriend and I have been together for around three and a half years. We moved in together after less than a year of dating. I need help on being a better top, and I think the future of my relationship depends on it.

We had a long heart-to-heart conversation yesterday. We’re both unhappy with the state of our sex life, have been for a long time, and are looking at calling it quits. We started out non-monogamous, but closed things up around 6 months ago. I can’t lie—our relationship has been tumultuous, but without getting into too many details, I think I do feel like our relationship is worth saving.

For the vast majority of my sex life I’d almost always played the bottom role. I used to think that was just what I “was,” but as I’ve gotten older I’ve started to question whether that was really true. I think I fell into a trap where I mistook what everybody else saw me as for the truth, being that I’m skinny/small/twinky and not traditionally ultra-masculine. My boyfriend deals with the flip side of this coin: As a Black man, throughout his life and relationships he’s often been expected to play an aggressive top role. We both identify as versatile and have since the beginning of our relationship. We’ve opened up to each other about how painful these dynamics have been to live with, both in and outside of long-term romantic relationships, and I guess I always hoped we’d be able to help each other heal from it. But the reality is that throughout most of our relationship, I’ve been the bottom.

There has been a mountain of hurt, betrayals and misunderstandings between us in relation to this. For a long time I’ve felt really down on myself—that if I was physically bigger, or more traditionally masculine, or used a deeper voice, stood taller, got louder, I’d find the cheat code that would make him want to bottom more often for me. Part of the reason we decided to close our relationship was due a series of betrayals and dishonesty on his part. I know now that it doesn’t have anything to do with me physically or his attraction to me, but those old hurts still get triggered sometimes. Now that we’re monogamous, it’s gotten even more complicated with what I think is my growing realization that I don’t want to bottom anymore. My inner world has shifted too: Now most of my fantasies are about me topping, and in a way I think my body is actually rejecting bottoming because it’s become painful and unenjoyable for me, when I used to be able (and wanted) to go and go. The last few times I’ve bottomed, I’ve felt myself tearing up or getting emotional during the act. I think the realization that I’d been “performing” a role I wasn’t actively choosing for so long has changed me.

In our talk yesterday, I felt like for the first time ever I finally gained some clarity on the type of experience he is wanting. He told me a really long story about his first experience bottoming: Apparently he’d met an older, very experienced top who was exceptionally communicative, sensitive, seductive, patient and basically rocked his world, repeatedly and for hours. He described it as this guy teaching him what wanting to bottom should feel like. That the guy told him he’d been put in a box up until that point. I can’t lie, I was uncomfortable listening to his story, but I also had the sense that this could be the key to finally solving the disconnect between us. He said the guy told him he had “studied” sex and intimacy for many years and read lots of books on the subject. I asked if he’d ever shared this story with any of his previous partners, and he said no, he couldn’t have as they’d have been too jealous. I was struck by that. In our convo, I told him I was happy that it happened that way for him, and it sounded like a rare, very positive first experience. There isn’t anything in my history that could compare. I started having sex at 15 with my high school boyfriend, and all either of us knew about gay sex came from porn. I was also struck by the slowness of what he described—there were massages, frottage, extended amounts of foreplay. What he described didn’t exactly turn me on, but I was feeling really intense emotions and was trying my hardest to listen intently.

I see two paths for us. Now that I know the kind of experience he is craving, we can work on trying to create that together. Or we call it quits. We agreed to take sex off the table and sleep separately for a while. It does seem like we’ve both been unconsciously repeating entrenched patterns from our previous failed relationships, and as I’ve gotten older I have tried to grasp the chances that I have to recognize and change those, yet here I am. Neither of us has tried to surmount or overcome an issue in a long term relationship like this before. They would simply end with both parties going their separate ways. I think it was the first fully honest conversation we ever had about our sex life in the time we’ve been together. One thing is certain: Our dynamic needs to change. I just don’t know whether we have it in ourselves to do it. I’m afraid of the heartbreak I’ll experience if even with a ton of effort, it doesn’t work. At the same time, I want to try. We’ve overcome a lot as a couple. However, it does feel like we’ve finally reached the core issue in our relationship. The way he said it is, “Ninety percent of ‘us’ is perfect and amazing, but there’s 10 percent that hasn’t ever been there.” If I’m being really honest with myself, I’ve felt the same way. We love each other deeply, but I know that sometimes that isn’t enough.

So I’m writing to you for book recommendations, and advice or thoughts you have for me in general. I read The Velvet Rage years ago and it had a profound impact on my worldview and helped me see myself as part of a long line of men who came before me, and I think I need to re-read. I’ll also revisit Urban Tantra, though I remember rolling my eyes at some of the more woo-woo aspects of that book. From his story, it sounds like they had somewhat of a dom/sub dynamic with rules and lots of, “Yes, sir,” but it was all intensely intimate and loving, never rough or degrading. What’s your take on all of this? Is trying to change our dynamic after so long a lost cause? Am I hopelessly misguided and does this just need to end?

—Time to Say Goodbye?

Dear Time to Say Goodbye?,

Your letter does not paint the picture of a lost cause. You and your boyfriend have come so far and achieved real clarity. You’ve had the kind of difficult conversation that so many people who write into this column need precise help starting/conducting. You’ve pinpointed the issue and have a potential plan. See it through. You worry about heartbreak if this doesn’t work, but I think given just how much you’ve written about your relationship, you’ll have heartbreak either way. Clearly, you care. The bigger tragedy, from my perspective, would be to not take advantage of this potential solution you two have devised. I think you’ll be more likely to regret not trying at all than trying and not being successful. A relationship that is 90 percent perfect is worth attempting to hold onto—and even more so if you can identify the room for improvement, which you have.

It’s not at all uncommon to take years to figure out your sexual role—one fascinating study of gay/bisexual men found that this self-label was learned over a 15-year period. What is your hang-up with topping? It seems less about skill/technique and more about how your “type” doesn’t necessarily square with perceived norms. Well, there are all kinds of tops (you may have heard the term “blouse” for guys on the fem side that like to top). One of the most important qualities in a top is will. People want to be fucked by someone who wants to fuck. Your attitude and enthusiasm may be priceless assets. From there, your style can flourish. More important than any outside source is the information you’ve received from your partner about his ideal bottoming conditions. There are definitely books on topping out there (like The New Topping Book by The Ethical Slut authors Dossie Easton and Janet W. Hardy) and you may want to consult them, but prize your partner’s word over everything. Also, bottoming can help make you a great top. It instills inherent empathy and you have experience/taste that you can bring to the table. Apply your experience.

Truly, I think you’re onto something and that you should absolutely go down this path with your boyfriend. It will probably be necessary to work through the past betrayal—don’t ignore it because the same issues and responses to them may manifest again. A counselor could help there. And speaking of, I think psychologist Walt Odets’ Out of the Shadows: Reimagining Gay Men’s Lives is a more compassionate and sex-positive assessment of gay culture than The Velvet Rage, though I respect that the latter is a very important book to many gay men. At the very least, it’s worth reading both.

Send Us Your Questions About the Workplace!

The columnists behind our advice column, Good Job, want to help you navigate your social dynamics at work. Does your colleague constantly bug you after hours? Has an ill-advised work romance gone awry? Ask us your question here!

Dear How to Do It,

My wife and I haven’t had sex for 20 years, by her choice. She also won’t talk about it. We are compatible in almost every other way, and I’m not interested in leaving, but the lack of a sex life is extremely frustrating. How do I initiate discussions about reviving this part of our relationship?

Dear Frustrated Midwestern Husband,

Maybe a good place to mine inspiration would be to consider how it got to be 20 years without sex. That’s a long time. You say that your wife won’t talk about this, but how much effort on your part was made to raise the subject in those two decades? Were there regular reminders that you are unsatisfied with this aspect of your relationship, or did the talks drop off and fall by the wayside? If it’s the latter, your wife is perhaps operating from the understanding that sex is something that is not part of your relationship, and that’s the way it is.

You write that she won’t talk about this, but you deserve clarity—after all this time it’s still bothering you. Lead with your devotion—you simply don’t want to leave her—but also present your yearning upfront. Tell her your lack of sex is still on your mind, so much so that you wrote in to an advice column for help on the matter. Ask her what she thinks of this. She may be content. This may derive from her sexuality (perhaps she is on the asexual spectrum), or it may be beyond her ability to articulate. That is to say, there are many potential reasons why she does not want to talk about this. It may be easier for you to get somewhere if you ask her what she thinks you should do. You’re still interested in sex. You want to be in this relationship. How does she think you can square those seemingly contradictory truths? And, for that matter, how do you think you could? Say sex is off the table entirely. Could opening the relationship to sex with others work as an alternative for you? This may seem drastic to someone who has lived monogamously for 20 years, but that extremity also may prompt a reaction from her and help lubricate the conversation.

You still may not get anywhere. You simply cannot force a person to talk or form opinions about something that they refuse to think about. If these attempts continue to be in vain, consider counseling—a third party may be able to get the conversation going more effectively.

More Advice From Slate

My husband recently got a job where he wears suits. He looks great in a suit and this is a huge turn on for me. We would even incorporate it into sex until I revealed a fantasy I’ve been having during sex and wanted to try in more detail: Basically, he would be my boss or superior and he would take me under dubious circumstances, like as punishment for a mistake or because I want a promotion. He hated this. He said that the idea of role-playing as a “workplace sexual harasser” makes him feel “dirty in a bad way” and that I watch too much porn. I was hurt. Did my husband kink-shame me?