Ask Debby Herbenick | My brother's into transsexuals

Q In a recent column [In & Out, TOC 294], you rightly assured a concerned reader that he and his girlfriend could not get an STI from a used sofa even if someone had had lots of juicy sex on it. But what about bedbugs? Isn’t that a real threat?
A I received tons of “what about bedbugs” e-mails from TOC readers, and you are all correct. I should have said “but you can totally get bedbugs that way!” Bedbugs are a real problem that we all need to be more conscious of, and bringing used furniture such as mattresses or upholstered furniture into one’s home can bring bedbugs in, too. Just as I don’t recommend Dumpster diving for a date, I also don’t recommend Dumpster diving for furniture. You’d think bedbugs would be on my mind, too, given that my partner obsessively checks our sheets for bedbugs every night before sleep. To make it up to you all, I have this to offer: If you send an e-mail to ickybedbugs@gmail.com, you will get an automatic reply that lists CDC resources for identifying and getting rid of bedbugs, as well as a list of five of my favorite sex things these days.

Q My brother and I recently moved back into my parents’ house to save money, and we share a laptop; he’s 28 and I’m 30. My brother is not very tactful about closing windows after he is done on the computer. Over the past few months—first by simply seeing chat windows that he left open or his Gmail after he’s forgotten to log off, and later by taking cursory glances at the browser history—it has become obvious to me that my brother is looking to hook up with men (and one chat window mentioned TS, which I’m assuming is “transexual”). It seems pretty definite that he is questioning his heterosexuality. He has always seemed really into girls, so this has all been surprising. Should I confront him with what I’ve found, and if so, how? I will always support and love him—even understand him as I myself have dated both men and women. We’ve always been close and I thought we had the kind of relationship where he knew he could talk to me about anything, but I’m not sure now. If asking him about it is going to embarrass him and just create a rift in our relationship, then I don’t want to say anything. This could just be a curious dalliance and not an entire life change for him. But if this is something he’s struggling with, I want to be there to support him. He has not seemed very happy since he’s come home, and I wonder how much this has to do with his sense of discontent. Also, I worry about him being safe, especially if he is looking for guys on the Internet to hook up with. Our mother is a relatively progressive woman and I think she would be able to accept it if her son was gay, but our father is an old-school man’s man and I can understand if my brother’s secrecy stems from fear of our dad finding out. What should I do?
A I honestly can’t tell you what your brother’s exploration “means.” For some people, Internet searches and chats are ways of exploring their sexuality on the path to coming out as gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender. Other people, and I’ve known quite a few, enjoy the attention from people they meet on the Internet and get turned on by interacting with all sorts of people online or watching porn and writing e-mails about hooking up with other people even though they never follow through on it. I don’t know where your brother falls. However, why not ask him what it’s about? You could approach him gently and say that there’s something you want to talk to him about but it’s hard for you because you love him and don’t want to threaten your relationship. You could let him know what you’ve found, assure him that you know his sex life isn’t your business (because it’s not), but that you do want to make sure he knows he can always talk to you and that you will always support him. Or you can take the indirect route by weaving LGBT-supportive things into conversations, things about current events (like ItGetsBetterProject.com) or about your own experiences being with women and men. The thing is, I feel as if we’ve gotten to this “confessional” place in our society where some people think everyone has to come out to them about their sexual lives. Your brother doesn’t have to share his sex life with you. I totally get that you want him to be safe. I want that, too. But I also want people to feel safe to have some privacy for themselves, to explore and experiment on their own.

Q I am a 30-year-old female ten months into a new relationship (my boyfriend is 28). I have always had orgasms easily and normally have five to seven orgasms during sex—two or three during intercourse and, if my boyfriend is up to it, several more (from oral or manual stimulation) afterward. The problem is (and I’ve run into this in the past), after the first few months of the relationship my lovers seem to get tired of satisfying me after intercourse. My current doesn’t get that the orgasms after intercourse aren’t optional for me. My orgasms are totally intense, so that’s not the problem. I have heard of other women needing dozens of orgasms, but my boyfriend says they are just “greedy.” This is destroying our relationship, as I resent him for not satisfying me and end up in the bathroom masturbating after sex.
A Just because you experience orgasm easily and want/“need” many of them in order to feel satisfied does not mean it is your boyfriend’s job to make that happen. The same would be true in any gendered relationship. It is not a woman’s job to satisfy a male partner until he says “done,” for instance. Sex between two people takes two people and if one wants to stop, then they stop. The person who wants more (you) can feel free to keep going solo. I say this as someone who has been on both sides of the fence. It is normal for one person to still want more; however, it is not a very healthy pattern to put pressure on one’s partner to give more every single time. The sex part of your relationship might go more smoothly if he sees his ongoing participation as optional, something he can choose for fun and pleasure, not because he has to or else you’ll be upset and do the “martyr masturbating in the bathroom” thing. For reasons not fully understood, men tend to experience more fatigue after ejaculation than women do after orgasm, so some of the conflict may be because you’re hitting men up for more activity when all they want to do is chill out or fall asleep. You might consider whether you could be satisfied with your orgasms as they are and not keep asking for more. After all, sexual arousal tends to subside after 10–15 minutes, as blood flow returns to normal. Or you could masturbate in bed with your hands or a vibrator while he falls asleep or kisses you or you watch porn together. Try being flexible.