You have listed some of them. Your living arrangement has been a challenge; you are short on privacy and long on irksome company. How are you to surrender to a sensual stronghold when a bullish roommate could barge in at any moment wearing a Viking helmet?
The central issue here is that you and your fiancé have not found an unthreatening language for this slump in your erotic life. By telling you that there is "something physically wrong" with you, your fiancé is needlessly stoking your anxiety, which in turn is hindering your body's sumptuous possibilities. No one can do a convincing striptease after being told that they have an unnamable condition.
While I think Handholding Forde's prescription is Dark Ages polite, naming your needs is always a crucial exercise. Heed the words of Creative Solutions Stephens: "patience, confidence and communication are the best aphrodisiacs."
Despite his crude delivery, your fiancé does make a worthy point. Our hormones are messengers, and the progesterone-based birth-control pill rewrites their map; as such, arousal can become difficult to locate. I urge you to do some independent research.
An Orgasm a Day Fraser makes the notable suggestion of carnal solitude. I would add, pick up the excellent The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex. Begin building your sexual library. Reading will form a bridge between you and your fiancé and give you a common platform for conversation.
Your "issues in the bedroom" are not the only concerns that are making you hesitant to marry. The question of other lovers looms in your mind. Considering this curiosity, I completely disagree with This is a Funk Blackwell. At this point, it is important to put "what if" in front of everything. Question and investigate. Be a relentless sleuth in your own life. And when it comes to your sex drive, get out of the passenger seat and take the wheel.
Live, 2 p.m.: Claudia Dey takes your relationship questions. Click here
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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