When men ask me this one question on a first date, they never hear from me again.

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, Jessica replies to readers’ comments and suggestions below.

Hey How to Do It,

Re Wants to Be Slut-Praised: I came across this column and wanted to share my experience. I just don’t continue to date guys who ask right off the bat or are fixated. It’s that simple. I’ve slept with hundreds of people, not just men, and I don’t go into it with my partners. It’s none of their business and irrelevant. I don’t ask them and wait a very long time if I tell them at all. I only told my ex-husband of six years once, and we were both drunk, and he doesn’t remember the number. We laughed about it later, I still didn’t tell him again, and we’re still friends.

If they ask within the first few dates, they’re judging, and I’m not interested in that kind of judgment. Being intolerant of those types of questions and tests has really helped me to only have amazing relationships with people who don’t care about anything other than how I treat them. I’m also typically monogamous and ethical about any type of relationship I’m in, so I understand what the letter writer means. It probably helps that I’m an adult entertainer, so I have developed hard boundaries on conversations and ending dates. It’s a lot of weeding people out, but worth just saying bye as soon as they ask those types of things. I’m 36 and haven’t been able to salvage a connection after they ask intrusive, invasive questions to judge me or my sexuality. Never. It sucks when they’re cute and seem nice, but I’ve always had a cuter, nicer one come along immediately after. You just have to learn to be strict on calling it and moving on.

—Frequent Reader

Bravo. And thank you for your individual take on the efficiency strategy that Rich and I often recommend in the early stages of dating—I think the more perspectives available on the value of that, the more easily folks internalize the fact that there are mindsets other than scarcity in these matters.

Hey How to Do It,

Re Going Down and Getting the Sickness: Thank you so much for taking the time to answer my question. I saw someone else followed up as well. I typically don’t have any symptoms other than when I give her oral, however, I must admit, I am at my most aroused when going down on my wife, so it does make sense if it is the “honeymoon rhinitis.” I wonder if just popping a Benadryl alongside my Tadalafil would help things out there.

Also, thanks to the confidence and education that reading your column has provided me, I am happy to report that I’m probably up to six or seven times a month now, as well as getting to go down maybe twice a month now. We only get one life to live, and I feel like I’m living it a little fuller now thanks to your help.

—Going Down and Getting the Sickness

Thank you for following up, and for your appreciation of the column. Please consider checking in with the person who prescribes your Tadalafil about possible interactions, and, unless you’re already pretty happy with Benadryl, there may be newer generation antihistamines that have fewer side effects in general.

Hey How to Do It, 

It is criminal that Pandora’s Orals didn’t include a description of the technique. Please demand they write again with the particulars and publish their response!

—A Fellow Sufferer of Climaxless BJs

Unfortunately, we are not able to enforce such demands in the format of this column. With coaching clients, I do sometimes ask whether they’re open to giving me more details about aspects that genuinely feel relevant to our work together. As I touched on in the letter, practical details could have helped me find a way for the writer to introduce that technique without giving the entire backstory to his partner. But with friends—oh, rapturously, with friends—I do often make similar requirements. After all, they’re asking me to perform the same tasks and use the same skillset that I do across almost all of my professional endeavors at this point. They can give me the full picture, including some fascinating gory details (or a follow-up report, which is more useful than entertaining) in exchange. In summary, sometimes giving more information helps me help the person asking, and other times it’s a nice nod to one of the ways this column functions for casual readers: the juicy bits add interest.

Hey How to Do It,

I saw an older letter from someone whose wife was sick with cancer, she had a double mastectomy, and he wanted to find an outlet. My wife of 33 years was diagnosed with fast-spreading breast cancer, and she had a double mastectomy. She had ongoing chemo treatments plus radiation. It wrecked our sex life. She was too sick to feel in a sexy mood.

So, I just used porn and masturbated. I knew that I could not break her heart in the last few years of her life by asking if we could open the marriage up. I knew that for her, the right thing was standing by her in her struggle, and I had to not think of only myself. She passed three years after diagnosis. I have found a new partner, and we are having lots of fun sex now. When someone is fighting for their life, I feel the partner should stop thinking of themselves and see what the sick person needs and wants. Also, my new partner is an oncology nurse, and she said that 50 percent of marriages end when the wife is diagnosed with cancer. However, when men get cancer, over 80 percent stay married until the end. Men can be selfish idiots.

—Get Your Priorities Straight

I’ve heard about similar statistics to the ones your current partner is referencing, and it’s heartbreaking. People can be selfish idiots, and gosh, do men seem to take the cake when we’re looking at this kind of stark data. I applaud you for putting your sexual desires aside and focusing on being there for your wife. I’m assuming, based on what you’ve written, that you accomplished that while treating her with the care, respect, and human decency that you offered her throughout your marriage.

Since there’s a developing theme today of desire for follow-up information, I’ll go ahead and ask: Can I reach out next time there’s a letter from someone whose spouse is dying, and is wrestling with how to behave like a person? It’s a very indelicate subject to cold contact a person about, and here you are generously offering us a window into your experience. I know I’d appreciate it, and I suspect there are readers who would as well.

Hey How to Do It, 

Re Only Jealous of His Vacation Days: You both didn’t notice that the writer is this upset when she’s only been seeing Jack for six months! This is less “we’ve missed all these possible vacations because he’s with his ex” and more “maybe I’ll miss a vacation at some point with him because of it.” In six months, how many epic vacations did she think she’d have been on?  Seems she is really looking for reasons to make this into a big deal when it likely hasn’t had any, or very little effect, so far on their time together.

—Why Do People Get Pre-Upset So Often?

With the utmost empathy for the fact that you’re probably using these columns and comments section posts as a form of entertainment, and therefore not reading with the full effort toward comprehension that one would expect in a professional environment, not only did we notice, but we did mention it. After the editing process, in which decisions are made by an editor about what to cut (and Ilyce Glink was assigned this question for Pay Dirt and addressed that particular angle quite thoroughly), what went to print was Rich’s mention of the shortness of the relationship to date at the very top and bottom of the article.

I’m choosing to address your comment, not for the minor joy of turning your own sign-off back on you, but as an illustration of how incredibly difficult it is to practice the part of effective communication that relies on paying attention to everything the other person (or people, in this case) is saying. I have been doing this work for over a decade, and things do legitimately slip past me sometimes. The same can happen in conversations. And since our column has always encouraged people to talk, to communicate, to address things verbally, it seems useful to instrumentalize your note as an example of how easily we can stray into a presumption when we aren’t paying attention carefully. There’s a balance, obviously, especially in a medium where real-time clarifying questions cannot be asked. But the more you practice listening, reading every word, and checking your assumptions before they crystallize, the more that habit will be present in your communications that matter—with loved ones and partners.

—Jessica

More Advice From Slate

My husband and I have been married for 25 years and were together for five years before getting married. We have four adult kids—our youngest just moved out for college last year. From the time things got serious in our relationship, he was very open about the fact that he occasionally hooks up with his (male) friend “Charlie.”