3 Insights on Date Nights, Sex Secrets, and Size

Tracey’s Tip: Spontaneous desire does disappear over time — you need to create long-term desire

International sexpert Tracey Cox and award-winning podcast host Zibby Owens have joined forces for a weekly Q&A podcast answering your anonymous sex questions.

This week, in episode two, Tracey responds to questions about why planning date nights should be something exciting to look forward to, what to do if you spread an intimate sex secret and it gets back to your partner, and how to sensitively have conversations about your partner’s penis size.

Read an excerpt below and follow this link to listen to the entire episode.

Q: Do date nights actually help your sex life? The thought of them makes me want to stick pins in my eyes but something’s got to happen or we’re never going to have sex.

TC: I really don’t understand why people have such a strong reaction to planning sex. They think it takes the fun out of it, or turns sex into a chore.

Now, why does that turn it into a chore? You’d write down a restaurant booking in your diary and get a lovely flush of anticipation every time you look at it. We plan going out to restaurants all the time. We choose the restaurant, look at the menu online, think about what we’re going to wear. Why is it acceptable to plan for a meal but not for sex?

I am very pro-date nights because I think anticipation is a fine substitute for spontaneity. And, like it or not, spontaneous desire does disappear over time. You need to create desire long-term.

Having said that, there’s a date night and a date night. Simply writing ‘Date Night’ on the calendar and putting absolutely no effort into planning what you’ll do means you’ll both look at each other in horror when it comes around and end up having awful obligatory sex in the missionary position with the light out.

Date nights work when you both take turns in planning what you’ll do, and they don’t have to include sex. They’re a night (or day) when you put aside time to spend together, doing things you like doing, that put you in the right place and mind space that might — MIGHT — lead to sex. If you don’t have sex, you’ve still bonded and had a nice time just the two of you.

Does this still sound like something that makes you want to stick pins in your eyes? Date nights do work but only if you approach them the right way.

Q: I told a sex secret about my partner to a friend. She told her partner who knows my partner and it all got back to him. He’s mortified. How do I fix this?

TC: Nearly all of us are guilty of over-sharing details about our sex life. And before I talk about why you shouldn’t do it — and how to fix it if you have — I want to say that sharing certain sexual experiences with friends can be a very good thing.

It’s especially important for women to discuss sex. Conversations about consent, what’s acceptable sexually and what isn’t, what makes us feel uncomfortable, choices we’ve made that we perhaps regret — we need to talk more about these things, not less.

The same goes for talking about how to masturbate, how to close the orgasm gap, and problems reaching orgasm. I constantly tell women it’s normal NOT to orgasm during intercourse but lots still think I’m making it up, to make them feel better. It’s often through honest chats with girlfriends that women discover this is true.

Talking about your sex life to get advice and information is one thing. Sharing salacious details purely for a laugh at your partner’s expense, or to demean them, is quite another.

Things go wrong during sex and no one wants to look like an idiot in front of their partner. Even more humiliating is knowing it’s all going to be turned into a story to entertain all your partner’s friends. If your partner doesn’t trust you to respect their privacy, they will censor themselves and their behaviour in bed, for fear of being judged by both you and your friends.

If you are going to share a secret, please think about the consequences. What would happen if your partner hears you’ve been talking about this with your friends? Will they laugh it off or will it be a deal breaker? Choose the people you confide in very carefully because all sex gossip is good gossip.

How to fix it if the damage is done: if you haven’t already done this, the first thing to do is to apologize from the bottom of your heart. The second thing to do is give reassurance that it will never — and I mean never — happen again. You have to be sincere about this. If you think it’s kind of funny or that he’s overreacting, he’ll see that the promise isn’t genuine.

The third thing to do is to reassure him. Tell him it’s great that he tries new things with you and you would hate for that to stop because of what you did.

Then, I’m afraid it’s a matter of waiting for forgiveness.

Q: I’m dating a man with a small penis. I can tell he’s paranoid about it and desperate to ask me if I think it’s small. What do I say? Do I tell the truth?

TC: Women spend their lives asking, “Do I look fat?” Men spend it asking, “Do I look too small?”

Most men are super sensitive about their penis size because most men are secretly convinced they’re inadequate. This is because they compare their penises to men in porn who are chosen specifically for their big willies.

He’s also not stupid: he’s heard all the jokes about small and big penises and he knows if his is either under size or over size, all your friends will know about it. Given his vulnerability and the dire complications if you get it wrong, how do you answer if your man asks you if you honestly think it’s too small or too skinny?

The first thing you need to know is this: he already knows the answer to the “How big am I?” question. Most men have done their own research and measured themselves so if he’s much bigger, smaller, thicker or skinnier than the norm, assume he knows exactly where he stands on the scale. Outright lying is just silly and demeaning. What he’s looking for is reassurance that you’re OK with it, not affirmation of his worst fears.

Should you tell the truth? Well, the correct answer to, “Is my penis too small?” is never yes. It’s polite and kind to fib, but it needs to be believable. Don’t say, ‘It’s enormous!” if it isn’t. Say, “I really like your penis. It feels fantastic inside me and penises that are too big hurt.”

Think through what to say beforehand so you get the wording completely right, look him straight in the eye if he asks the question and speak with confidence and feeling. Make it clear his penis is attached to him: he’s a package not just a penis!