Before Giving a Risqué Wedding Gift, Ask These Two Questions

Sign up for the Slatest to get the most insightful analysis, criticism, and advice out there, delivered to your inbox daily.

Each month, How to Do It columnists Jessica Stoya and Rich Juzwiak ask readers for their thoughts on the letters they’ve received. In this edition, Rich replies to readers’ comments and suggestions below.

Re What’s Wrong With a Blender? : There are kind of two separate issues here:

I think the answer to #1 is pretty clearly no. Wedding gifts typically aren’t expected to be private—you really think this would be a fun surprise for one of them to open in front of their mom or their 10-year-old niece? Unless they have sex-related items on their registry, I think it’s safer to assume this would be an unwelcome time. Unsolicited sex stuff on the wedding day is crass.

The answer to #2 depends on the couple. Just knowing their sexual orientation alone isn’t enough to determine that. It depends on their personalities. Do you know them better, or does your wife? The person who knows them better should cast the deciding vote about whether this happens … but either way, not at the wedding.

If you’re going to do this, do it as a bachelor party gift or something, not at the wedding itself.

I like the bachelor party idea. Always wise to match the present to the event. Also, I know I risk coming across as pedantic by saying this, but it’s very rare for people to open wedding gifts at their wedding, so no one needs to worry about the 10-year-old niece. Your overall point stands, though: In more situations than not, cockrings are inappropriate wedding gifts.

Please keep questions short (<150 words), and don‘t submit the same question to multiple columns. We are unable to edit or remove questions after publication. Use pseudonyms to maintain anonymity. Your submission may be used in other Slate advice columns and may be edited for publication.

My friend once rented an apartment that had a very large mirror mounted on the ceiling above the bed. He told me he wanted to mount a “objects are larger than they appear in mirror” sign on it.

The dream. A caveat so attractive to the fragile male ego that I’m surprised more guys don’t have some version of it tattooed on their heads. (“Objects are larger than they appear to your perception” or something along those lines?)

Re Confused and Turned Off : Talk to Alex about this. He’s almost certainly aware that this is one possibility of his gender exploration. He’s bound to be worried about it, but will probably appreciate you treating it as a problem for you to solve together—even if the solution is that you become friends instead of lovers.

Just because you’re attracted to men doesn’t mean you’re attracted to every man. I’m a trans guy. The people who were attracted to me as a short, busty 30-year-old woman with hair down to my ass are not necessarily attracted to me as a short, chunky, balding 45-year-old guy. That’s OK, even though it’s painful at times. Thems the breaks of gender transition.

Very helpful. I appreciate the last two sentences of your comment, especially. Rejection is part of life, regardless of your gender identity, and we survive it.