I suspect I know why there’s something very off about my wife … down there. She’s not ready to hear it.

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 am a 54-year-old man who has been married for 20-plus years to a 50-year-old woman. I had a pretty active sex life before we met, and she had some experience, but mostly just a few hook-ups, that, by her recollection, were mostly her opening her legs and letting the guy finish hurriedly. She claims that her first non-solo climax was with me and that was one reason she continued seeing me, leading to a very deep bond. Similarly, while she wasn’t particularly sexually adventurous, she was open to various positions and, honestly, after experiencing a pretty good sample size, I found her vulva and vagina to feel, taste, and look better than others.

While our frequency has declined over the years, our weekly (sometimes semi-weekly!) sex is generally fine, except for one thing.

Her vagina is too loose now, and I have trouble getting enough friction to cum. This is new to me, because while I am not much longer than average, I had always been told that my erections are much thicker than other guys’ and had always found every partner to be “tight.” Would 25 years of active sex “stretch” her out?

This has been building for a few years, and yes, now that I am older, it takes a little bit more “action” for me to finish. We’ve tried various positions and some work better than others, but in general, it just gets tiresome thrusting away as she visibly loses interest a few minutes after her orgasm (which happens in all but our most hurried sessions). While she will give some half-hearted licks, she doesn’t like giving oral—especially after penetration—and we tried anal a couple of times, but neither of us is really into that. So most of our sessions end with me jacking off next to her, while she is obviously content and thinking about other things, which sometimes kills the vibe completely.

I’ve mentioned to her a few times to “try to squeeze it,” but she just sort of laughs it off, which also tracks with her generally viewing sex as something that the man puts most of the effort into. Plus, while I enjoy taking the lead in bed, I don’t like telling her what to do sexually or otherwise. I don’t want to hurt her feelings, and this isn’t the most important thing, but I’ve had trouble getting the point across that now that we are older, I need her to put a little more effort into it, whether that be Kegels, something to tighten up, or more active participation in our sessions. Any advice?

—Worn Out

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Jessica Stoya: Oh, boy. His sentence, “And this isn’t the most important thing,” is perfunctory and performative. I feel like the writer had a sense that people might judge the language used and the issue at hand, and felt like he had to say it’s not that important.

Rich Juzwiak: Right. It’s important for our purposes: It’s the focus of the letter, and that’s what we’re here to address.

Jessica: It’s also clearly pretty important for him. Would 25 years of sex stretch her out? That’s not how things work. Also, our writer likely had very little opportunity to learn in his lifetime whether that is or is not how things work. But both sexes tend to lose pelvic floor tone as they age, regardless of how much sex they’ve had, how big any penises might have been, whether pregnancy has happened and a woman has given birth, fisting, orgasming, etc. It’s just age. Often, women who have given birth are given access to the tools to maintain pelvic floor function as part of the recovery process.

My biggest concern at the moment is how to get the wife into the kind of doctor who can evaluate whether some pelvic floor therapy needs to happen, regardless of how the sex is going to feel for this guy. When you get into your 60s and 70s, if you don’t have a strong pelvic floor, stuff can start to prolapse, you can have urinary and bowel leakage, it’s not a good scene, and it’s a lot easier to intervene earlier than to be like, “I’m 70, and I can’t control my pelvic floor.”

In order to achieve that, I’m pretty sure he’s going to have to put sexual satisfaction on a shelf and just focus on saying, “I think this is something you should mention to your doctor.” He can do that with the knowledge that it’s likely to help her pelvis tighten back up. But often, in these kinds of discussions, if you portray it as just kind of a sex thing, the person who’s not particularly invested in sex is going to dismiss it.

Rich: Yeah, it’ll just seem selfish and insulting. But that’s why I think the letter writer has to position himself as an expert. There’s nobody who knows the feel of her vagina as he does; they’re monogamous. Also, hormonal changes can create a different kind of effect. What he is feeling in terms of looseness is an estimate; it’s his assessment. He’s not the expert on what’s going on; he’s just the expert in the fact that something is going on. He can tell her that he’s noticed something’s a little bit different, and so she might want to get that looked at.

Jessica: Also, sometimes penises get smaller or less hard on average as time goes on, so it could be that a portion of the difference in friction is because he’s shrinking a bit.

Rich: Exactly. Obviously, a PDE5 inhibitor would be useful in keeping you at full mast. You will shrink sometimes because there’s just not as much blood going into your dick, so if you can get that going using some medication, then you may retain your previous max size, and maybe that would actually give you a change in sensation as well. In a long session like that, especially with a partner who’s kind of just going along for the ride, there can be a distracting element of, “Well, this isn’t ideal in terms of the titillation I’m feeling, so is my erection going to go away?” Then that gets into your head, and it affects the sex. So that’s why the ED drugs are useful beyond the blood flow; they help with the psychology of it sometimes.

Jessica: It’s really great that our writer was able to be, it turns out, permanently the person who can help his wife have an orgasm. And I always prefer when men who enjoy sex with women err on the side of prioritizing the woman’s orgasm. That said, in the same way that when I’m having sex with a man, I know once they have an orgasm, my fun is finished, so I kind of factor for that, he might consider trying to aim for sex where she doesn’t orgasm until right before he’s about to, and that’s probably going to result in her staying engaged throughout. Lots of women do have one orgasm and go, “Yeah, I’m done now.” I would roll over and go to sleep.

Rich: Right. And I understand that these issues are important for the writer, but look, you’re having regular sex decades into your relationship, and she’s coming. What he describes in terms of her coming and then he’s jacking himself off is a really common thing that happens. I see it a lot myself in my own experiences. In terms of gay male sex, bottoms, if they come, a lot of the time, they can’t keep taking the dick; it’s just too much, and so then the top finishes himself off. Of course, you want people to be engaged and to enjoy that along with you until the end, but there are worse things. The way that they’ve sorted it out is what I would recommend. So yes, this isn’t optimal. I understand you want it to be even better, but a little perspective is called for. It’s still pretty damn good.

Jessica: From the context of a very heteronormative relationship that I’m in now, it’s often a similar experience in those contexts. It’s rare for both people to have the Bridgerton-style, coming at the same time kind of moment.

We can often get these scripts in our heads of how sex is supposed to play out. In the context of a long-term relationship, you can develop a very specific and almost rigid routine. So keep in mind you don’t have to adhere to a routine that isn’t working. You also don’t have to switch to one other routine. Sometimes she finishes, and you’re there jacking off. Sometimes you aim for her to orgasm just before you do. Maybe every once in a while it doesn’t happen for her, that’s probably going to be OK, and sometimes you can do other things.

Then, just to address his thing about positions: My instinct is that positions where her lower back is quite arched in one direction or another, or her legs are pressed together, even crossed, are going to be the positions where there’s more of a sensation of tightness. As much as I really love and support open dialogue, if that’s not going to function or if he needs to not mention sex at all to tell her that it would be a good idea to mention the pelvic floor changes to a doctor, he can just casually go for positions that feel tighter.

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Rich: Yes. But obviously, ideally, talking about this as gently as possible, and not using words like loose, is the way to go.

Jessica: Do not say anything about sample sizes or better or worse than others.

Rich: It’s funny, because a lot of the time, my advice is to use the letter sent in as a template for how to talk about it with your partner. This is one of those letters that’s not the template. You don’t want to go into a lot of this stuff just for the sake of being heard; you don’t want to hurt her feelings and shut her down.

Jessica: I would prioritize saying, “It seems like there are some physical changes. I would really love it if you’d mention that to your primary care or gynecologist next time you see them.” Then, when addressing the sex, do your best to make it a neutral issue. Err on the side of it being your own issue. If it’s true that his erections are not as firm as five, 10 years ago, use that, just because this kind of stuff is not easy to hear, especially for women who are aging and don’t really have that much of an investment in sexual pleasure to begin with.

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