My girlfriend begs me to have sex every time I come home from a certain activity. There’s no way anyone is actually into this.

How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Jessica and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

My girlfriend loves to have sex after I get home very sweaty from the gym. This should be a good thing. Wrong!

I can’t stop feeling insecure about how much I must smell and how gross I am after an intense workout. But according to her, she loves it and it drives her wild. I really want to believe her, but it’s hard to trust that someone could enjoy the smells of body odor and sweat. Is there a way I can let loose and enjoy this more? Or should I just put a stop to the post-gym second workout?

—I Smell!

Dear I Smell!,

Take it from me, a disinterested third party, people enjoy the smell of BO and sweat. Not all BO and sweat are made alike, and if the sweat isn’t fresh (and, for example, dries on clothes that aren’t removed or, worse, reworn), it can smell sour. But good BO can be so good.

Your girlfriend is hardly alone. In fact, there’s a gay party in New York called Pheromone that caters to guys who want to stick their noses in each other’s pits. Read up a little more on this kink, and it may be easier to understand that, yeah, some people like this a lot. It requires very little of you to allow your girlfriend to indulge (merely raising an arm, if that), and if you can be comfortable with that, you should. She’s expressed how into it she is—believe her.

But getting to be comfortable with that can be a big ask. In the United States, we’re generally taught to scrub away our natural odors, and that can ingrain in us a sense that we smell bad. There may be no getting around this for you. With the knowledge that what your girlfriend is asking for is highly common, see if you can just relax and let her do her thing with your post-workout body. If you find yourself unable to get into it or with lingering discomfort, maybe you don’t rock full post-workout funk. Maybe you let her enjoy you in the morning, before you’ve showered or put on deodorant. Or at the end of the day, when your deodorant has run out. Test your own boundaries of comfort. If you ultimately conclude that any amount of funk is too much for you to unleash, that’s totally OK.

Dear How to Do It,

When I married my husband 20 years ago, he was handsome, tall, witty, and athletic. Well, he’s still tall, witty, and cute. But time is beginning to catch up with him. His hair is thinning, and he’s not as slim and fit as he used to be. Basically, he’s aging. And I’m afraid I don’t find him as attractive as I did before. For that reason, I’ve been making excuses, and our sex life has been lacking lately. I’m just not as attracted to him as I used to be.

I know this sounds shallow. I’m also aging, and what’s worse, men often trade their wives for younger models. I don’t want to trade my husband for a younger man, but is there anything I can do to feel more attracted to him as he (and I) keep getting older? I love this guy. I don’t want to leave him just because he has a little less hair and can’t fit into ultra-tight leather trousers anymore, but I never thought I’d have to wonder how to stay physically attracted to your aging spouse. How do people do this?

—Don’t Want to be a Shallow Gal

Dear Don’t Want to be a Shallow Gal,

Usually, when this issue comes up, at least in this column, it presents with less specificity. People feel less compelled to have sex with a long-term partner for reasons that they often can’t quite spell out. The spark is gone, sex is less exciting. It’s hard to even muster the effort to qualify “blah,” because, well, that’s blah for you. In those cases, usually my advice is to apply Esther Perel’s methods of creating eroticizing distance in your relationship, as detailed in Mating in Captivity. The idea is to shake yourselves out of routine by, for example, changing venues (via a weekly hotel sex date, for example) or erotic letters. Seeing an old partner with new eyes can make sex more exciting. You may want to try something like this (or at least read Perel for more ideas and to think about whether they could even apply to your situation).

But if this is an issue with type (i.e., you’re into people who are younger than your husband), what can you do? You like what you like. You may want to play with the idea of sensation/exploration to help bring you in—if there is stuff you haven’t tried but want to, like toys, kink, or groups, that might be a way to recharge things. You could also kind of do an anti-Perel and focus on sex as not a carnal way to get your rocks off, but as an expression of love and appreciation for this person who has been by your side for 20 years. That might not be so exciting, but it could at least give you an attainable goal. If nothing here works, consider counseling—either solo or couples. The latter could, of course, require you to be honest about your lessened attraction to your husband, which might be hard. But a third party’s help regaining it or at least relearning how to find sex exciting with your partner might make the momentary awkwardness worth it.

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Dear How to Do It, 

My husband, who is 63, and I, a 58-year-old woman, have been married for 39 years. We were married young, but all was well. In his early 30s, our sex life changed, and we started having more time between having sex. He was very into his hobbies, and at times, I felt left out since I was home with our daughters.

Fast forward through his 30s to 50s, and there would be months between intimacy. I’m almost 10 years younger and still wanted to be with him. I love him very deeply, and I know he loves me. But he just doesn’t seem interested in me. This has harmed my self-esteem greatly. Time moved forward, and he began to have erectile dysfunction issues. I begged him to go to the doctor. He finally did and received medication. He tried them once, and that was it. They either didn’t work or it’s me that’s the problem. I cannot remember the last time we had sex, but it has been years.

As expected, we’ve grown apart in multiple ways. Politically, he has become far more conservative, and I’ve become more liberal. This applies since it is one more division and one less thing we can discuss together. About 15 years ago, we went to therapy. He was fine with the two of us together. I don’t know what happened in his one time in individual therapy, but our therapist stated to me in my next session that I should divorce him, which seemed a surprising statement to me. I didn’t act on that because frankly, that’s not how we were raised. He will not go back to therapy.

Now I’m older and more frustrated with the separation emotionally, physically, and with our differing perspectives. What can I do to make this change for the better, or is this as good as it gets? Is it too late at my age to consider divorce? I don’t want to be alone for the rest of my days.

—Living Alone and Married

Dear Living Alone and Married,

It’s never too late for a divorce. If your concern is about restarting your life and finding another partner, realize that people can and do find love at any age. Besides, if that is what’s preoccupying you, you’re looking way into the future when you should be concentrated on your immediate situation. Forget how you were raised (easier said than done, I know)—why stay in something if it’s not serving you? Do you want to spend the rest of your life in a situation that you find sexually frustrating with someone whom you seem to be drifting further and further away from? If you do, you don’t have much of a shot at finding new love, at least not ethically. If you leave, you open your world to chance.

I’m not saying that your letter reads like the only way for you to be happy is to divorce. I’m an optimist, and I know that even seemingly desperate situations can be turned around. I believe in the power of love. But some things concern me here. There seems to be a communication breakdown between you and your husband. He got ED meds, they didn’t work, and why seems to be a mystery. From that, I infer that he talked little about what was actually going on with him. The thing about PDE5 inhibitors is that they don’t tend to be effective without a will to have sex (i.e., horniness). They facilitate blood flow, but something needs to get the blood flowing. This does not mean that the problem is you (though it certainly could be that your husband isn’t attracted to you—I don’t want to sugarcoat this and dismiss that possibility entirely). It could also have something to do with him physically (a hormonal issue, for example) or sexually (perhaps he has a fetish that is not being catered to, or it could have something to do with his sexuality, like maybe he’s asexual). We don’t know because he’s not saying, and maybe part of why he’s not saying is that he’s not investigating. Shame could also be a factor.

If I’m reading your letter right, it seems like your couples counselor saw you individually, which is not usually how these things go, and that they then told you to divorce your husband without explanation. That entire interaction sounds strange to me. When you write that he will not go back to therapy, I am assuming that the situation turned him off therapy altogether, including couples therapy. If that is not the case, find a different couples therapist and go. If it is, what can you do? You can’t make him get the help that your relationship greatly needs. Having a discussion in which you state that you are considering separation/divorce might help him see the gravity of the situation. It seems that might be one of the few tools that you have left. Consider using it.

—Rich

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I am a bisexual cis woman who’s been married to a heterosexual cis man for the past three years (both in our mid-30s). Throughout our relationship, we have spoken openly about our sexuality, and while he’s had some explorative experiences with men, he’s been sure that he is straight. Over the past several months though, he’s been making more explicit comments about men’s bodies.