When the flesh is weak

Q: I was coming home from work on New Year’s Eve when I ran into the girl who lives across the hall from me. While we didn’t know each other very well, we have seen each other around and have had some casual conversations. She told me she’d just been dumped by her boyfriend, so I invited her to the New Year’s Eve party I was going to. At the party, we drank a lot and smoked some pot. We were pretty fucked up. When we got back to our building, I invited her in. She accepted. After talking on the couch for a while, we started making out. Before you know it, we’re in my bed, both of us with our shirts off. I was getting the go-ahead signal, but there was one problem: I was too fucked up to have sex. I stopped what we were doing. She ended up staying the night.

Do you think I’ll be branded in her mind as some square loser who couldn’t put out? She’s moving in two weeks and I would love to hook up with her again before she leaves. Should I make an attempt to hang out with her again? Please help. —Helplessly Hoping

A: When you say, “I was too fucked up to have sex,” you no doubt mean, “I was too drunk to get an erection.” But who says you need an erection to get this very horny girl off? Were your fingers broken? Were you too drunk to stick out your tongue?

When it became clear that your dick wasn’t going to work, you needed to kiss the girl and say, “Hey, I had too much to drink and, hey, you know what that does to a man. But I still wanna make you feel good. Do you know what’s working? My tongue is wor-.” If this girl was anywhere near as horny as her behavior would seem to indicate, she would’ve pushed your face down into her crotch faster than you could say “Paul Gigot.”

But instead of making the most of the night and selflessly treating her to an orgasm or two, you called the whole thing off. Bad move, son. If you had taken the time to make her come with your mouth or your hands, she wouldn’t have branded you a loser, limp dick or no limp dick.

So what do you do now? Slide a note under her door: “I really enjoyed spending time with you on New Year’s Eve. I’d love to take you out again before you move.” Playfully acknowledge New Year’s Eve performance problems: “Maybe this time we could do something that involves a little less alcohol?” And, finally, include this closing thought: “Knock on my door anytime.”

She might not knock, of course, regardless of what happened on New Year’s Eve. Let’s face it: You were an impulse purchase, a one-night stand, someone she turned to for comfort on a lonely New Year’s Eve. Even if you were the best sex she ever had, the odds that she’ll come back for a repeat are pretty slim. But who knows? She impulse-purchased you once, she may do it again — that’s why, “Knock on my door anytime,” is so important. If she knows she has a standing invite, she may decide to take you up on your offer before she blows town. Good luck.

Q: I’m in a crisis. I am dating a man who is kind, considerate and mature and sexy. The only problem is that he’s had a vasectomy, and I want kids — I want kids real bad. He says he would consider reversing his little nip and tuck, but it’s not as if he’s made any doctor’s appointments. Do I follow my head or my heart? —Love Him or Leave Him

A: Leave him. No single man who wants kids gets a vasectomy, LHOLH, and neither do men who are indifferent or conflicted about kids. Men who get vasectomies have made up their minds about kids: They don’t want them. There’s a finality to a vasectomy, a certain case-closed, decision-made, end-of-discussion quality to the act that only a love-blinded woman would be unable to see. Wake up, LHOLH: Single men who get vasectomies not only don’t want kids, they’re hostile to the very idea of having kids.

So what if he’s told you that he’s rethinking the whole kids thing?

He did tell you he would “consider” reversing his little nip and tuck, after all. Maybe meeting you changed his mind? Consider these two points: First, straight men will say and do anything for pussy. They’ll lie, they’ll cheat, they’ll steal, they’ll make false promises and they’ll put it on Visa. And some men aren’t above toying with a woman’s feelings or exploiting her maternal longings in an effort to keep her panties down. Amazing, I know, but true.

Second, beware the man who tells you what you want to hear about the long term (“Oh, yeah, baby, kids, lots of kids ...”) so that you’ll tell him what he wants to hear about the short term (“Oh, yeah, baby, fuck me ...”). Sometimes men (and women) who don’t want kids play Hamlet, hemming and hawing and soliloquizing on the subject. But unlike Hamlet, he’s already made up his mind: He doesn’t want kids. The hemming and hawing is for show, he’s simply stalling for time, hoping his wife or girlfriend will lose interest or hit menopause.

So while this man may be telling you what you want to hear now, you have to judge someone by his surgical actions and not his pretty words. His actions indicate that he’s not right for you. And his words haven’t really promised you much. OK, so he agreed to “consider” having his vasectomy reversed — big fucking deal. Consideration doesn’t cost him anything and it won’t knock you up, so why wouldn’t he make noises about considering getting his vasectomy reversed, particularly if it keeps your panties around your ankles?

· This is my response to the horny 21-year-old guy who didn’t get any oral action from an older woman. Any man who gives a woman oral sex because he wants to get a little himself should fuck off. Don’t go down on a woman because you want her to go down on you. If you love going down on a woman, then you should go down on a woman without any expectations. We should all go into sex with zero expectations. —MMS

Excuse me, MMS, but fuck your zero-expectations nonsense. Allowing someone to get you off obligates you to get them off in return. At the very least, the person who has had an orgasm should offer to get the other person off. (And it has to be a cheerful, good-faith offer, not an I’ll-get-you-off-if-you-insist offer.) If the person who hasn’t come yet isn’t hung up on coming (or just wants to cuddle or whatever) then that person, the didn’t-come-yet person, can demure. We should all go into sex with open minds and a giving attitude, I agree, but accepting an orgasm without offering one in return is flat-out rude.