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Group Therapy is a weekly relationship-based advice column that allows readers to contribute their wisdom. Each week, we offer up a problem for you to weigh in on, then publish the most lively responses, with a final word on the matter delivered by our columnist, Claudia Dey.

A reader writes: I am 34, and was raised in a religious home. At 27, I lost my virginity to a woman I intended to spend my life with. When that relationship ended, I didn't date for almost two years. During that time, I came to terms with my upbringing and decided I wanted to date, have a few casual flings and live a little.

I soon met and fell in love with a woman who is everything I've ever wanted in a life partner. But I still have insecurities about sex, and the fact that she has had a few dozen partners to my three doesn't make it any easier.

Is it too late to talk to her about getting out to "sow some oats" or must I suck it up and live with the fact that I missed the boat?

QUIT IF YOU CAN'T COMMIT

If you think you are missing out on something great, then stop wasting your time and hers. You will discover that it is far easier to find sex yet far harder to find love than you could ever imagine.

Are you prepared to live with what you will have lost for the sake of sowing your oats? It is not a matter of missing out, but rather being mature enough to make a commitment and working through your insecurities.

It is in the times of doubt and temptation when one still chooses to commit to a relationship that genuine love emerges.

- Wayne Coghlan,

Collingwood, Ont.

SEEK QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY

The only thing you will learn from playing the field is that every woman is different and enjoys different things sexually. Having multiple partners does not necessarily make you a good lover.

The key to being a good lover is not the number of women you have slept with but how well you please your partner - quality versus quantity. Don't be afraid to fumble or goof up, for practice makes perfect and will in turn boost your confidence.

Lastly, you haven't missed the boat: You have found love, something a lot of people are still searching for. Is casual sex worth a life partner?

- Lestrade George, Montreal

YOU DON'T SOUND READY

Honestly, it doesn't sound like you are the "sow some oats" type. The issue is not that you haven't had more numerous partners; it is your insecurity about this fact. This is what you should talk to your girlfriend about.

I am troubled, however, by your characterization of committing to the woman who is everything you have ever wanted in a life partner as "sucking it up." It doesn't sound like you are ready to be a life partner. If you are not ready to happily give up other possibilities, you are not ready to commit to her. In which case, you should do her a favour and take a hiatus until you are.

- Margaret Frances, Toronto

THE FINAL WORD

Dear Lover,

There is a common misconception that the Casanova experience makes for a dream lover. The bandit of the bedroom seduced women from behind prison bars; loosened bloomers from across an ocean; lured a blushing bride away from her vows. While these are useful and admirable qualities in a man, there are other ways to become

legendary.

I stand with Talk To Your Girlfriend Frances: you do not seem the wild-oats type. You have true love. Do not forfeit this rarity for a rite of passage you imagine you have missed.

Bedding women like a voracious Henry Miller will only secure some half-phone numbers and bragging rights to cross-eyed drunkards. Once the women's stories are told, their warm bodies will be long gone. This is a febrile and transitory state. You have something far more lasting and valuable.

Sex is like letter-writing. You transmit yourselves to each other. Imagine the depth you can achieve with one correspondent rather than with hundreds of pen pals. (Ask Jimmy Page. Contrary to the slurring chorus of Led Zeppelin biographies, he was so very lonely.)

To bolster your confidence, commit to your paramour and to her outrageous and constant pleasure. Study her anatomy. Read the Taoists. Learn about male multiple orgasm. Go to tantric sex workshops. Watch Last Tango in Paris. Practise salsa dancing. Like any physical expression, sensuality is a skill that can be cultivated.

Heed the words of Mature Enough Coghlan. You must diffuse your insecurities. The aforementioned erotic tool belt will certainly help.

Also, abandon your mistress, Lament. With her white fishnet stockings, long cigarette and bejewelled hand sweeping over vast and unexplored landscapes, she makes us wish we could live our lives again. When, if we turn them over carefully in our hands, we see that the hard and sure steps we took have actually allowed for the remarkable.

Good Lover George poses the essential question: "Is casual sex worth a life partner?"

So you may have missed a breathy tryst on a fire escape, or making love to a trapeze artist under an umbrella. Love is an expansive state. It dares us to be many versions of ourselves at once. Harness them all and spoil your paramour. Be a Casanova for one. Now, that is a dream.

Share your advice, or ask for someone else's

Click here to read next week's question and contribute your widsom - or to submit your own dilemma. (We will not publish your name if you submit a personal dilemma for the print column.)

Claudia Dey's plays, Beaver, The Gwendolyn Poems and Trout Stanley, have been staged across Canada. Her first novel, Stunt, will be published by Coach House Books in the spring. Visit her website at ClaudiaDey.com

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