Dear Cary,
I am a married man in my late 30s. For the past several years, I weighed somewhere around 350 lbs. I noticed I wasn't getting much in the way of sex from my wife, a delicate, caring and feminine creature who has always been loving but not very sexual. So I went on a diet and beefed up, and am now a broad-shouldered and meaty 235 lbs. I was hoping that this would get me the attention I so desperately wanted, and things have improved a bit, but now I have another problem: My penis, which was tucked away and hidden for many years under flab, has emerged to a staggering (for her) 8-inch-plus length.
Now my wife is afraid to have sex with me because, as she says, it's too big, "it hurts" and she always needs "at least a day to recover." She's giving me plenty of head, which I enjoy, but let's face it ... I have a body with a years-old past-due sexual account that aches for collection! I want more! Other women have been showing more of an interest lately, and after years of frustration for one reason or another, some of them are looking mighty tempting. Cary, what should I do?
All Dressed Up With No Place to Go
Dear All Dressed,
It must feel great to have slimmed down so much. I admire you for that, and I'm sure your wife does too. But as you are discovering, your new body brings with it a set of surprising challenges, both physical and moral.
First off, you've got to stop hurting your wife. Her pain during and after intercourse could be caused by a number of things, but I'm guessing that with your newfound physical power, your eagerness to make up for lost time and the length of your penis, you're bumping up against her cervix, which can be very painful indeed. After all, her vagina is probably only about 4 inches deep. Other things could be involved, and she should see her gynecologist to make sure. But if you're striking her cervix, it's a solvable problem. You need to pay attention to any signs of pain from her. If she grimaces or winces or pushes you back, go easy. Back off. And try new things that give her more control. Put her on top, for instance. Let her control the pace and intensity of the encounter. I even saw a suggestion somewhere on the Web that you place a U-shaped pillow between you at the point of contact, so that you don't thrust so deeply. At any rate, like an adolescent, you may have become stronger than you realize, and you need to learn to control this new strength, and give her time to get used to it.
There is also a subtle psychological dimension to this. While a strong, hard, energetic man is more attractive to the opposite sex than a large, phlegmatic, round man, he is also a more threatening choice as a mate, both because of his physical superiority with its potential for violence and because of his attractiveness to other women. So your transformation from a fat man to a strong man may have caused a subtle shift in the power dynamics of your relationship. Your wife may be struggling to adjust to the new you. While she is no doubt proud of what you have done, she may also fear your strength; she may also sense that you are thinking exactly what you are indeed thinking: That maybe you should use your new attractiveness to go out and score some babes. In fact, she might be enduring a great deal of pain out of the fear that if she doesn't give you lots of sex, you may seek it elsewhere. So this is a delicate time, and you need to step back and think about the moral dimension.
The difference between an adolescent and a man is that an adolescent is testing his strength and attractiveness, flaunting it and, knowingly or not, hurting people with it; a mature, confident man, on the other hand, holds his strength gently in reserve. Knowing that it can hurt people, he learns to control it. In a sense, you have achieved a second adolescence. Now you have to grow into a second adulthood.
You have been given extraordinary powers. You can use them to strengthen your marriage or destroy it.
What would Superman do?
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Want more advice from Cary? Read yesterday's column.
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