How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!
Dear How to Do It,
I’m a 36-year-old woman, and recently, I got a buzz cut, as I’m dealing with some scalp issues and it’s easier to mark things when there isn’t a lot of hair in the way. My husband of nine years, “Edward,” has had an odd reaction.
He has recently discovered that he enjoys just kind of rubbing my head and running his fingers through my very short hair. He says it’s soft and very nice. The other night, he actually ejaculated from doing nothing but running his hand around the back of my head.
It’s made the whole thing weird to realize he’s sexualized it that much. I don’t mind, exactly, but I also just find the whole thing strange and don’t know what to think about it. I didn’t even realize a guy could get off with no contact to his dick. How did this happen? How do I square my feelings of weirdness with his pleasure?
—That Was Weird
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Rich Juzwiak: Well, it seems like Edward went from zero to ejaculation in no time at all. So I understand why the letter writer is taken aback. To go from “he says it’s soft and very nice,” to him coming is quite the surprise. My general advice here is: If you can make a guy come that easily, keep doing it. If only they were all so easy to trigger.
Jessica Stoya: I am 100 percent on board with that stance. However, I think the writer’s feelings of weirdness make being comfortable with the way that she can make her husband orgasm less simple than the situation currently is for Edward. I’m not even sure if giving her husband an orgasm is the right way to phrase it because she’s just sitting there having hair.
Have you run into men who have orgasms with ejaculation without their dick’s being touched?
Rich: Yeah, only in the context of being receptive anally, which still involves having your prostate touched. So it’s not on this level, but it is always a great party trick.
Jessica: I’ve run into women who, with the right kinds of non-genital stimulation, can have an orgasm. I just answered a letter from a woman who had an orgasm just from phone sex with no physical stimulation. But I have never run into or heard of a cis man ejaculating without some part of their genitals being stimulated. So I believe it happened 100 percent. But this is so rare that, between the two of us, we do not know of another case of this that we’ve run into. And both of us, I think it’s fair to say, have gotten around considerably as far as physical interactions with people, and are also the kind of people who hear lots of stuff about people’s sex lives.
Rich: I would just add, I’ve never seen it, but I’ve heard about people who can get off from their nipples being stimulated. Also, wet dreams don’t typically involve actual contact in any appreciable way.
Jessica: Wet dreams didn’t occur to me at all. Yeah. That’s an almost entirely psychological, subconscious kind of phenomenon.
Rich: It’s fair to say that a lot of it’s in your head. I think that goes for orgasms in general. There’s a heavy psychological component to orgasms. I mean, what’s the cliche that your biggest sex organ is your brain? Isn’t that what they say?
Jessica: Yes. So it might make the whole thing feel a little less strange if the letter writer thinks about it next to the widespread and pretty frequent phenomenon of wet dreams.
Rich: Also, something I’m curious about: Was this something that he knew was stimulating to him, or did it catch him by surprise? Was he surprised to find out that this was such an erotic thrill for him? Or did he go in knowing that? There are a lot of unknowns with the husband. And the letter is kind of searching for this stuff that I think a conversation with him could get at more of than we could. Because I would say, at the very least, this is idiosyncratic.
Jessica: The dictionary definition of the phrase “he has sexualized” very much implies choice, an action purposefully taken. People tend to say that phrase as a way of saying that he chose to make this a sexual thing. That might not be the case. So, as always, take a look at the assumption being made, and understand that it’s an assumption. Try to get to a place of curiosity, and then ask your husband how that happened. Be prepared for him to say I don’t know.
Rich: “I don’t know, but I like it.” Then you need to consider whether this is too weird for you to continue doing it, or if you want to indulge him. Again, it’s like free orgasms. It’s very little work done, which I love. I just love that from a scientific perspective. But also, it’s nice not to have to do that much work. Because on the flip side, doing a lot of work can get kind of fraught.
Jessica: We hear from so many people in very long-term relationships seeking a way to introduce a feeling of novelty. So this could be thought of as a happy surprise in a certain way. I am wondering if part of the weirdness stems from her husband getting off on a physical change that was fairly necessary because of some sort of medical problem. Because that can suck, right?
Rich: Yes, but the alternative can suck more, which is you needed to do this thing, and now I’m not attracted to you at all. I get it. Life is so rarely perfect. But you could weigh the outcomes and appreciate that, well, at least he’s into this.
Jessica: Absolutely. However, if part of that weird feeling does have to do with the medical issue then becoming someone else’s turn on, that is a valid and common reaction to have. For every person with a visible disability who’s like it’s pretty cool that sometimes people with medical kinks are super excited, there’s a person who’s like the last thing I want is this thing that’s really a burden for me being highlighted or focused on.
So I want to encourage our writer to think through that reaction and really consider where she falls in the range. I’m not trying to compare a shaved head due to scalp issues to an amputation or other disability. But it’s often easier to use these pretty strong examples to talk about stuff.
Also, I keep thinking of all of the online sex workers who have Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, for instance, which can be really physically debilitating, but also tends to make them look way younger than their chronological age. That’s another sort of model for making hay while the sun shines in a certain way.
Rich: Interesting. Gifts and curses arriving together.
The writer gets to really decide in any situation. This is her head. She gets to say how much of this is incorporated. She gets to decide whether she wants to keep allowing him to run his fingers through her stubble, and the degree to which this is integrated into their sex life. And if it’s too weird, hopefully they have enough to fall back on that it doesn’t really matter.
Jessica: What texture and follicle density are her pubes? Is it possible to provide a similar enough sensation in a framework that might feel more inherently sexual and is made from a conscious choice? Is there some wiggle room there that could be a comfortable compromise? Velvet or velour lingerie could work, too.
Rich: Does velour lingerie exist?
Jessica: Oh yeah. Etsy has anything that you might want.
Rich: I have to see this.
Jessica: Also, the fashion trends of the late ‘90s and early 2000s are super back. So I wouldn’t be surprised to see it showing up in Victoria’s Secret or someplace similar.
Rich: Like Juicy Couture vibes, just sexy.
Jessica: What if Juicy made sporty lingerie?
Rich: That’s a million-dollar idea right there.
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