Late Bloomer

I grew up in a conservative Christian family, didn’t start dating until my twenties and married in my early thirties to a beautiful woman with whom I have great kids; my family life is wonderful, but my sex life is not.  Though I’ve used pornography off and on since I was a teenager, I was quite naive about sex and was a virgin when I married.  My wife doesn’t really enjoy sex and sometimes is averse to it, so sex has become very mechanical.  Two years ago I started going to strip clubs to find some relief from my sexual frustration, and I met a beautiful dancer who is a very intelligent college student.  I enjoyed talking with her and often would tip her $100 just to talk for 30 minutes, then last month she told me she had started escorting for a few clients she had met in the clubs.  It was awkward with her the first time, but by the third I was fully relaxed and uninhibited, and I felt like a huge knot inside me was untied.

I discovered your blog around the same time as I started seeing my lady friend in private, and it has been a great encouragement to me; I have a few questions I hope you can help me with.  First, my wife and I are in counseling for our sexual problem, but do you think she can potentially grow sexually and be freed from her inhibitions?  Should we be seeing a sex therapist rather than a regular marriage counselor?  With regard to my companion, I would like to know if you have any general advice (since I’m such a late bloomer), and also if there are things I can do besides being a good client (clean, on time, respectful of boundaries, courteous, and donation upfront), to show her that I really appreciate her. 

Most of all, I thank you for showing care to clients like myself.  It is meaningful to learn from your experiences and benefit from them.  It seems unfair that I haven’t even paid you for your advice! 

From what you’ve said, you have a good marriage in every way except for sex, and you don’t want to ruin that; so you need to be careful and discreet so neither your wife nor any neighbors or church members find out.  Since you’ve been reading my blog you understand that sex workers are caring professionals who help men (including many like yourself) to deal with sexual urges you couldn’t otherwise explore, but your wife and others probably wouldn’t understand and there would be major unpleasantness.  I’m very glad to see that you didn’t mention any sense of shame or guilt with your escort; if anything, it looks exactly the opposite to me (“I felt like a huge knot inside me was untied.”)  But it’s also important that you not let yourself get carried away; when a person has been sexually repressed for years as you were, the feeling of sexual release can be intoxicating, and can interfere with your judgment.  So keep seeing your escort (who sounds really perfect for you), but if you start getting feelings as though you’re falling in love with her you need to step back mentally and recognize that it’s the hormones talking.

A sex therapist might indeed help more than a general counselor if your problem is due to culturally-inflicted hang-ups rather than other issues merely reflected into the bedroom.  However, it’s important that A) you find the right one; B) you are very patient; and C) your wife really and truly wants to get over her hang-ups.  It won’t be easy, and she will probably never be as uninhibited as your escort; after all, you yourself know the kind of brainwashing she got, and it’s much worse for women than for men.  I’m assuming she is in her thirties, and it’s not unusual for a woman to mature sexually during that period; however, if she’s much past 35 and you don’t see any signs that she really wants to loosen up, I’m afraid the prognosis isn’t very good.  I’m not saying it’s hopeless because human nature is a complex thing, but in order to correct a sexual problem one has to recognize it as a problem in the first place, and some sexually repressed people simply refuse to admit that it is.

You may find “Advice for Clients” helpful, plus my answers to reader questions in two previous Q & A columns; however, it seems to me that you already know a lot of that.  It’s not necessary for you to compensate me in any tangible way, but if you really want to you could send me something from my Amazon wish list; please don’t feel you have to, though.