When it comes to social media, share too much and you’re boring everyone with Instagrammed appetizers. But the opposite’s just as bad: Share too little and, as Mark Byrne found out, it’s really easy to look like a shallow, self-aggrandizing jerk.
Don Draper doesn’t love. He schtups. Basically anything in a pencil skirt. Or pants. Or culottes. And he’s about as emotionally forthcoming as an office chair. You are into this? Get thee to a therapist.
Welcome to our brand new sex/relationship column, in which you ask GQ Sex Advice Lady for sex advice and she delivers. E-mail her your quandaries at gqadvice@gmail.com.
“Simplicity, to me, has always been the essence of good taste.” - Cary Grant
In theory, a one-night stand should be as easy as its sexual congregants. You want sex. She wants sex. Commence passionate no-commitment sexytimes. Finish passionate no-commitment sexytimes. Wash face. Sleep. Part. Thanks for the memories, you!
But in practice, there’s no such thing as a smooth one-night stand. Awkwardness is unavoidable. Morning-after mouths taste like crime scenes. Maybe there’s a stuffed-animal collection you spotted too late.
And there are always feelings involved—mainly the ever-present anxiety that one person here is getting used. (It’s called a walk of shame for a reason.) Yet there are ways to nobly pull off this ignoble act. And if you ever want this to happen again—and who among us doesn’t?—we’ve got to work together to make sure it’s done right.
It’s finally acceptable to find a girlfriend (or at least a one-night stand) on the Internet. Here are the new rules, featuring the bachelors from Workaholics.
We all know parents who coddle their children. Fortunately, wicked stepmother Jenny Johnson has the answer:
One thing parents don’t ever seem to realize is that not all kids are cute, and in fact some are ugly and should be told so. The ugly kids should be encouraged to pursue professions where their faces don’t matter, maybe a toll booth worker or a Wal-Mart greeter. I once heard a woman say she thought it was adorable that her son lost his two front teeth at the same time. I took one look at that and let the woman know her son wasn’t “adorable”, he actually looked like a tiny homeless person. I know parents who let their kids pick the restaurant when they decide to eat out. Bad idea. Kids can’t pick restaurants for shit. I remember one weekend we had my stepkids and my husband tried to let them pick the restaurant we were going to eat at. As I stood stunned by his lack of judgment, my stepdaughter said, “McDonalds” and next thing you know I was setting fire to all of my husband’s shoes. It’s so important to make your point when you have strong feelings on a subject. For instance, I have a strict no-eating-anywhere-except-the-kitchen rule at our house. So when I caught my stepson eating Cheetos on the couch, I spent four hours beating him in the front yard with a garden hose. I mean, come on, rules HAVE to be enforced.
Think you’re good at sex? The sex coach—yep, we said sex coach—will be the judge of that. He literally paces the sidelines of your bed, calling the plays and (gently) critiquing your moves. He wants to take you and your teammate to the promised land—and do you really want to argue with the Phil Jackson of boning?
“But what if a woman doesn’t want her boyfriend to fuck her with a bunch of dildos?” I wonder.
“That’s okay,” Amaranth says. “If she has a strong aversion, it’s unethical to keep harping, but she should be interested in at least trying it out. If you have too many blocks, resentments form. And that’s destructive to your sex life.”
As we discuss these “blocks,” I offer the example of anal sex—a classic male enthusiasm that many women abhor. “What can a couple do to find common ground in the anal-sex department?”
“Start with smaller things,” Amaranth says. “You don’t have to start with the penis. Also, he should combine the anal penetration with clitoral stimulation, because at first anal penetration alone won’t create an orgasm. Later, once the sensations have been integrated, he’ll be able to bring her to orgasm with just penetration.”
Although perfecting anal-sex technique might sound like a dream job, being a sex coach, especially a male sex coach, has its drawbacks. Take, for example, the one-on-one sessions Amaranth does with straight women who want help masturbating. Predictably, this kind of session can become a blue-balls hatchery. Once he met a client, a businesswoman in her late thirties, in a hotel room. As Amaranth knelt on the floor at the foot of the bed, guiding her through “manual clitoral stimulation paired with G-spot vibrator stimulation” (his words for what others might call, simply, “masturbating with gusto”), she moaned, “I so want your cock inside me!”
Incidents like this are not uncommon, but he says he remembers his manners every time. “Thank you for that vote of confidence,” he told her, “and for the honor. But I’m just the guy giving you instructions.”
Your foodie friend is having people over, but when you ask what you can do to help, he says, “Nothing.” That’s a lie. From predinner drinks to pro-level prep work, here’s a ten-step guide to being a three-star dinner-party sous-chef.
This is the greatest picture of Peter Dinklage in the entire world.
“Outside of white button down oxford cloth shirts, Trickers...
JD.
Robert Redford in The Great Gatsby [1974]
