The Luv Doc: A Pat on the Head

Dear Luv Doc,

After seven years of marriage to my husband and a fairly predictable sex life, he has recently become much more experimental in bed and more skilled with specific areas of my anatomy. I have talked about this with my friends and they think he might be having an affair, but that just doesn't add up for me. We are around each other quite a bit, he's not very secretive, and I can't imagine him having the time. Still, I do wonder what's up with his new sexy guy persona. It's a bit out of character for him. Until recently we had an ordinary, fairly predictable sex life. Once a week, mostly missionary. Now he wants to do all kinds of things all over the place. He used to mostly be into programming, beermaking, and biking with his friends. Now I guess I can add sex to that list. One of my friends joked that he is having a midlife crisis, but he's only in his mid-30s so that doesn't make much sense either. What do you think? Should I be worried?

– Satisfied but Suspicious

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I don't know, given the current rate of climate change, appalling governmental ineptitude, and a puzzling, steadily growing hostility toward erudition, mid-30s might actually be midlife. Maybe your husband knows something we don't – I mean besides a variety of sexual positions and new and inventive ways to perform cunnilingus. (Hey, just because I'm not a big reader doesn't mean I can't read between the lines. Besides, it's easier and there aren't any big words to trip me up.) Maybe he got a hot tip on the apocalypse. Or, maybe he learned how to bypass PornHub's paywall. I have learned it's never smart to underestimate a programmer – especially a programmer with enough patience to make his own beer. That's fucking commitment. I can barely wait for the cashier to ring me up at Pronto Mart. You launch into an in-depth monologue about the flavor profiles of obscure hops varieties and I'm like, "Who wants to beer-bong some Natty?"

Point is, your husband clearly seems to be someone who has a thirst for learning. You don't get to be a programmer by stitching cat videos on TikTok, though, to be fair, I can't really say that would prevent you from being a programmer either. You get to be a programmer by focused study and a close attention to detail. Programmers are often curious, creative, adaptable, and good problem solvers. In other words, pretty much the perfect personality type for becoming an expert at bird-dogging your erogenous zones. So really, it shouldn't come as a big surprise that your husband has suddenly become an expert at flipping your switch. Chances are, he has already put in an impressive amount of study and might have even sketched up some 3D computer models of clitoral anatomy. Why he hasn't shared his new enthusiasm with you – at least conversationally – is, I will admit, somewhat puzzling, but when it comes to communication about sex, puzzling behavior is often the norm. I blame Jesus. Four gospels and not one reference to cunnilingus? I'd call that dropping the ball, messiahwise.

Fortunately Al Gore invented the interwebs and now folks of all levels of literacy can find an embarrassment of information about sex in a hot second. It's a little harder to find information on how to discuss sex and sexual desires with your partner in a way that doesn't freak them out. Not everyone has the courage or conversational finesse to navigate those potentially treacherous waters. That might explain why your husband has chosen to lead by example rather than by allegory. He also might simply have wanted to test his newfound oral skills before flapping his jaws about them.

Whatever his motivation, you'll never truly know until you actually ask him, and that should be easy enough, right? After all, he is the one person on the planet you have chosen to be sexually intimate with, so if you can't ask him about sex, who ya gonna call? Jesus? That's an awkward threesome. In fact, you can and should consider your husband's new sex skills the perfect entrée for a forthright conversation about your sex life and how much it has improved. Probably wouldn't kill you to start the ball rolling with a compliment. A metaphorical pat on the back can sometimes feel better than an actual pat on the head.