"Hello?" I'll ask warily.

I'll hear sniffles, sobs and a lot of blubbering. This is not a good sign. Then, "It's me."

It may not be the same friend calling, but the stories never seem to vary. "We broke up. I don't know how it happened. It was just so fast. Another argument. I don't know."

They always call me, and always with a remarkably similar set of relationship woes. One friend once told me that if all else failed, I should become a relationship counselor. I was an excellent listener, she explained, and I possessed an objectivity which the vast majority of … Read More

I was twenty-nine, single again after a five-year marriage, and a virgin. When I met my now ex-husband Mike, I had just turned 21. We met at small Catholic liberal arts college, and even though I no longer believed in Jesus, the Saints, the Bible, God, really any of that. I was a virgin then, and I was a virgin when we divorced.

When I was younger, I'd wanted to stay pure, and had managed to protect my virginity despite all the high school guys I'd went out with, and the ten or so guys I'd dated in … Read More

Jennifer (name changed) didn't have sex with her ex-husband on their wedding night. "I chalked it up to fatigue," she says. But should it have been a red flag? Well, maybe. Read: 12 Relationship Red Flags

It's not that it didn't happen that one night that was the problem; it's that it was the first of many sexless married nights. As an engaged couple, Jennifer and her fiancé were doing it about three times a week, but once they said their vows, it quickly dwindled to about once a month—sometimes less.

Some experts call marriages that average 10 … Read More

The night's going great, you can't believe you're hitting it off so well on a first date, he's a great kisser, you take him home…

Whatever you do, don't sleep with him.

You've heard it before, but I'm not going to browbeat you about the immorality of going all the way on the first night. I'm also not going to say, as the London Telegraph does, that you're likely to drive away relationship material if, as the adage goes, the man "gets the milk for free." (If that drives him away, then be glad you're seeing the taillights.) … Read More

According to [the Frisky blogger] Amelia, anal sex is one of the things men love that women just don’t understand. Well, guys love the booty and they love doin' the butt even more than chicken wings, gadgets, and boobies combined! While Dr. V [of the Frisky] has been teaching all of us how to have anal sex, not everyone is down for that kind of lesson. Now I don't want to seem uptight, I know it's perfectly safe and, in some cases, really effective. But personally, I've already been schooled in anal and although I flunked the … Read More

How does someone end up not having sex for 15 years? By accident, swears writer Kit Naylor on Salon.com.

We've all had dry spells, but man, 15 years is one hell of a dry spell!

Naylor is a middleaged woman, a self-described recluse with two cats and no kids. She calls herself "a spinster long past my sell-by date." Spinster! We think that's a sexist way to refer to herself, but nevertheless, we admire how she got that way: she wants to be in love to make love. It seems that by eschewing casual sex and being committed to personal … Read More

When all is said and done, there’s not much to like. I mean, really: What is the big deal?

So writes essayist Lauren Slater in this week's Modern Love section of The New York Times. If you suspected Mr. Lauren Slater may not be too pleased that "sex interests me these days about as much as playing checkers," you'd be correct.  The authoress writes that her husband's sex drive far surpasses her own.

The tricky thing about differing sex drives is that assumption, which hangs over the relationship like a storm cloud, that "something's wrong" with … Read More

When all is said and done, there’s not much to like. I mean, really: What is the big deal?

So writes essayist Lauren Slater in this week's Modern Love section of The New York Times. If you suspected Mr. Lauren Slater may not be too pleased that "sex interests me these days about as much as playing checkers," you'd be correct.  The authoress writes that her husband's sex drive far surpasses her own. 

The tricky thing about differing sex drives is that assumption, which hangs over the relationship like a storm cloud, that "something's wrong" with the less … Read More

Imagine your significant other: boyfriend, girlfriend, spouse, favorite goat. Now, picture not being able to have sex—not because you're uninterested in sex, not because you're separated by oceans and continents, connected only by steamy emails. Instead, sex feels like a dull, rusty steak knife being twisted and jabbed where no dull, rusty steak knife belongs. Doctors can't seem to diagnose it, much less treat it. Bleak, isn't it? When I was 24, sex just hurt, for no discernible reason. Eight long months later, I learned I had a condition known as vulvodynia, a medical term which roughly translates to … Read More

There's no easy way to sugarcoat this, so we'll just say it: British men don't like sex. At least that's what an article in the Daily Mail is intimating. Evidently, relationship counselors have seen a serious spike in English dudes that have 'gone off' sex. They used to have an empire to run, we wonder what the excuse is now.

There are 2 main theories as to why this is happening, stressful working conditions and widespread depression. We're guessing that things were probably slightly more depressing in Dickens' era and Widespread Depression would be a good name for … Read More