Savage Love

Hey, Faggot: My husband and I are both in our mid-40s, and have two teen-age kids. My husband has a healthy sex drive, and I enjoy sex too, but far less frequently than he does. I work a high-stress job that takes me out of town a lot, and I'm also a part-time student and have to spend most of my free time studying. So my husband has to cover for me a lot at home.

As a reward, he thinks he should have frequent sex. Quite a while ago, we tried to compromise by reducing the frequency to once a week. But that is still more often than I want it. I have this intense anger because I can't have sex on my terms. Every weekend, he gets angry, and I feel guilty and resentful. I've suggested separation, but he doesn't want that. I've suggested separate bedrooms, so I could have more space, but he thinks I already have enough. Am I too selfish? I would like an honest opinion.

Sad & Demoralized

Hey, S&D: Unasked-for opinion: Unless you're having sex alone, no one gets to have sex exclusively on her own terms. Sex is something two (or more) folks do together, and like anything involving more than one person, frequent compromise is required.

An honest opinion: Your husband may not want a separation, but he'll have to reconcile himself to one -- and an eventual divorce -- if for no other reason than his wife wants a divorce. The longer you stick around, the more anger, guilt, and resentment will build up, until your marriage explodes. If you part now, you might be able to salvage a friendship. If you wait much longer, that won't be possible.

A final opinion: If you enjoy living together, raising your kids, and doing things socially as a couple, perhaps you could reconceptualize your marriage; a marriage is what the folks in a marriage decide that it is. There are plenty of couples in perfectly loving, perfectly healthy, perfectly sexless marriages. If your husband is willing, he could stay married to you and get himself a girlfriend. He would get laid more frequently, and you two could do it every once in a while for old times' sake.

Hey, Faggot: I have a problem: I was painting my kitchen wall while simultaneously preparing my lover's dinner. I slipped and fell on a food processor set on "hi." To cut a long story short, I lost most of what mother nature had given me! I haven't been able to tell my loved one about the accident, due to its embarrassing nature! This is causing tension between us. What should I do?

DW

Hey, Everybody: I have a problem: I get about 3 billion letters like this one every week. For the life of me, I fail to see what motivates young men and boys to send me questions like this. It's not as if I ever answer them, so what's the payoff? Boys, your pointless bullshit questions do not blow me away, or make my day, or upset me. They do confuse me, so if that's your intention, good work.

Again, I usually wouldn't run a question like DW's, but I have some pointless bullshit to get off my chest, and his letter seems a serviceable setup: I have something to say about bagels. I recently spent three days in a hospital. After watching heart-attack victims roll into the ER, I was naturally in a health-conscious frame of mind when I strolled down to the cafeteria one day. So I ignored the doughnuts and bellied up to the bagel bins. Initially, I was saddened to note that such a thing as a "butter-pecan bagel" existed. Why is it that we North Americans invariably turn good-for-you foods into heart-attack snacks? Granola long ago became candy bars; yogurt is now pudding; and bagels are morphing into Jewish doughnuts.

While I was trying to decide between a chocolate chip bagel or a cinnamon-sugar bagel, one of the cafeteria workers came out and filled an empty bin with ... bacon bagels. Butter-pecan bagels saddened me, but bacon bagels gave me fits. First, while bacon is delicious, this was a hospital cafeteria. It seems to me that hospitals should take a hard line on bacon, similar to the line they take on cigarettes. All hospitals are smoke-free these days, and why? Because smoking is really, really bad for you. Well, bacon is really, really bad for you too -- more people die of heart disease than lung cancer -- so why the double standard?

But what really blew me away about bacon bagels was the adding-insult-to-injuryness of it all. This time in our rush to appropriate and transform another basically good-for-you food into yet another grease & gristle delivery system we may have finally gone too far. Does the inventor of the bacon bagel even know that our Jewish friends gave us the bagel? Is this how we intend to repay them? By stuffing bagels with foods that God specifically instructed his chosen people to refrain from eating?

Hey, Faggot: I just read your response to Venturesome in Philly, the guy who wanted to see a "masseuse" for a hand or blow job [March 11]. I am a professional massage therapist, educator, and member of the American Massage Therapy Association. The massage therapy community has struggled for years to take our legitimate place in the larger health care community, and overcome the misconception that massage means prostitution in a clinical setting.