(Trigger Warning: Some questions could make you feel agitated. Reader discretion is advised.)

Sexolve is equal rights activist Harish Iyer’s Q&A space on FIT.

If you have any queries regarding sex, sexuality, or your relationship, and need some advice, answers, or just someone to hear you out – write in to Harish Iyer, and he’ll try and ‘sexolve’ it for you. Drop-in a mail to sexolve@thequint.com.

This week’s Q&As are below:

‘My Husband Wears My Panties’

Dear RainbowMan,

I am a 34-year-old married woman. I have been married for the past 4 years. I have something disturbing to share with you. This takes me some courage to write because I don’t know how this will be perceived by the person in the other end who is reading it. The issue is that, ever since our daughter was born last year, my husband has taken to wearing my nightgown and my dupatta, sometimes when he plays peek-a-boo with our baby daughter. He asks “Where’s mummy?”

Then he only answers, “Here’s mummy,” pointing to himself. Nowadays, he also sometimes wears my panties in bed saying that they are comfortable. Is he secretly a woman? You know what I mean, right? If that’s true then deep down inside, am I a lesbian because I married a girly man? Or is he becoming gay?

I am so utterly confused. I can’t speak about this to anybody and I don’t know in what light would you see my husband after reading this. I was scared that people will be pissed with me and tell me how I should react. It is bothersome and shameful. What should I do?

Mrs Doubtfire

Dear Mrs Doubtfire,

Thank you for your mail and your trust. I understand that it would take courage to write down what you feel deep within. It is not the business of anyone to tell you how you should feel about or react to something. What others could do is basically offer you a glimpse of how things look from where they are.

Regarding your partner’s peek-a-boo interaction with your daughter, I find it rather cute that in a world where it is common for dads to playfully ask “who is daddy’s girl”, your husband takes the route of “where is mummy”. Role-plays to reconstruct a new positive understanding of gender doesn’t seem like a bad thing.

Regarding your partner’s desires to get into your panties – that doesn’t make him girly, just as wearing boxers wouldn’t make him manly. I mean, what he wears or what he doesn’t wear doesn’t determine who he is or who he loves. We need not look at everything in the lens of manly or girly.

I suggest that you have an open dialogue with your partner and ask him what his desires are.

Clear your doubts but don’t do that from an accusatory standpoint. Let the dialogue be initiated from a space of mutual respect and understanding.

Your desire and curiosity to understand what’s happening within your partner’s mind are natural.

Don’t hate yourself for thinking about it. Rather, ask him, assure him that you will understand him. Do seek the intervention of a mental health professional if you get stuck somewhere.

Love, RainbowMan

P.S. Discuss

‘My Wife Isn't as Sexperimental as Me’

Dear RainbowMan,

I lived in the US for 10 years before coming back to settle down in India. I love my wife and enjoy a good relationship with her. And she loves me immensely too. It is a love marriage. My wife is modern but not experimental like my American girlfriends. I suggested auto-erotic asphyxiation but she doesn’t want to choke me. We can have so much more sex because of the lockdown, but I’m afraid that all the excitement has left our bedroom. We got married last year. What should I do?

Regards,

Choker Bali

Dear Choker Bali,

Truly the pleasure in life is not just to love, but to be loved back. On that note, congratulations on finding a partner who loves you back.

Sexual desires are personal. This means that it is common that, what one partner could like, the other may detest. Also, dry down during this lockdown is understandable. We are looking at the same things and the same people all the time. Familiarity breeds disinterest and sometimes contempt.

What does your partner like? Maybe you could start by understanding from her - what are her desires in sex? It may help to stretch yourself to her level of comfort and desires.

Also, your partner’s concern on auto-erotic asphyxiation comes from a standpoint of safety and that may not really mean that she is not interested in experimenting about new techniques in sex.

Is there some common ground in terms of desires that you could see? Maybe that could be explored?

Smiles

RainbowMan

P.S. Love is the biggest aphrodisiac.

‘Will Masturbation Make Me Impotent?’

Dear RainbowMan,

I masturbate many times a day. I waste a lot of sperms. Will I become impotent?

Worried Boy

Dear Worried Boy,

In a healthy male, there are thousands of sperms produced every day. While there are many factors that could affect fertility, masturbation is not a reason.

However, it is wise to not overdo anything, including masturbation. I’d suggest that we masturbate only when sexually aroused and not as an obsessive habit.

Regards

RainbowMan

P.S. Maybe engage in other things that could mentally stimulate you.

(Harish Iyer is an equal rights activist working for the rights of the LGBT community, women, children, and animals.)