minoanmiss: Minoan women talking amongst themselves (Ladies Chatting)
minoanmiss ([personal profile] minoanmiss) wrote in [community profile] agonyaunt2021-04-13 02:02 pm

Dear Prudence: Help! My Boyfriend Says I’m “Only an 8.5.”

He says he’s happy to settle, but I don’t know how to feel about it.



I’ve been with my boyfriend for about six months. He’s been wonderful with my 4-year-old son (who has started calling him daddy!), and we recently started living together. The problem is he just told me he considers me only an 8.5 on the hotness scale and doesn’t think our sex life is the best he’s ever had but that he’s happy to settle based on the whole package. I think we’re very well-matched (hotness-wise), but I don’t compare him to other men in that way. I’ve also tried to improve our sex life, without much luck. My question is: How should I feel about his revelation? Do I deserve more from a partner, in terms of feeling sexy and loved? Or should I stick with it for the sake of my son?


I’m trying to imagine how this came up in conversation. “Darling, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I’m so happy to be able to tell you … you’re a solid 8.5 out of 10. Very nearly a 9. I understand if you want to take a minute and call your parents. Also, I’ve had better sex in the past. I won’t bother you with the details but … it’s been better. I’m not going to dump you over it. It’s definitely good enough for me. Anyhow. An 8.5. A solid 8.5.” I don’t think it’s a requirement that a happy, fulfilling relationship also provide the best sex of all time, but I do think it’s incredibly odd and casually cruel that your partner thinks it’s necessary to a) rank you on a 10-point scale of hotness, b) inform you of your ranking, and c) describe your sex life as something he’s “happy to settle for.”

It sounds like your boyfriend is interested in making sure you feel like you’re not quite good enough and that he’s doing you a favor by overlooking your physical and sexual inadequacies. These are some deeply damaging and manipulative games he’s playing. Meeting your child and moving in together at six months is awfully fast. I don’t think it should be a point of pride that your son has taken to calling him “daddy” so quickly. You deserve more from a partner, and your son deserves more from a potential co-parent. A longer screening period will go a long way towards protecting both you and your child from guys like this.—Danny M. Lavery
jadelennox: Senora Sabasa Garcia, by Goya (Default)

[personal profile] jadelennox 2021-04-13 07:59 pm (UTC)(link)
that's a really smart friend.
seperis: (Default)

[personal profile] seperis 2021-04-15 08:48 pm (UTC)(link)
Funny story: I did live in Finland as an exchange student and those five months comprise three quarters (maybe four-fifths) of the total number of people I've seen naked. My host family (five of them), my boyfriend, my entire study abroad class (>30) and a few other relatives/people naked running into icy lakes; visits to people and sauna/naked/cold lake happened. Proportionally, I spent more time naked there than anyplace in my life, but in my defense, there was a sauna in the shower and fuck yeah I sauna'ed before showering. IT was like being home in Texas.

Five months: so much naked. In a country where I lived in a latitude north of goddamn Moscow. It genuinely did inform how I viewed human bodies (I was seventeen) and my scale for 'normal'. Though most useful was actually seeing so many naked girls and boys in my age group from like ten to twenty countries + Finland. Honestly, I kind of credit that for burning out a lot of possibility for body issues and weight in college and later; my sampling group was like barely five feet to six feet and change and from 'pole' to 'very plump peach'.

But you just made me flash back on like thirtyish of us chatting in a sauna in the country, all naked, maybe five other native English speakers of various nationalities, practicing our Finnish naked (since this was my study abroad group and not native Finns, we were segregated to respect each other's cultures. Before going out to jump in a almost-but-not-yet-frozen-lake and then take a group bucket bath.

(This is way cooler than it sounds; there was a room for this, with hot and cold faucets and dozens of buckets and treated wooden stuff (benches?) to sit on and do your face and problem areas with honey. While naked. Practicing your Finnish with your peeps you just met like an hour ago and can now identify moles even your mother and doctor didn't know about. Good times.)