Dear John,

I've been in a relationship with my boyfriend for about 3 years—I'm in my mid 40s and he is young 50s.  At the risk of sounding crass, ever since our first time together, the sex has been the most amazing sex of my entire life!  It is not only great, but he almost always can go for quite a while, sometimes hours.  I have felt like the sexiest woman alive because I'm thinking he's so attracted to me that he just wants me a LOT.  We don't live together but about a month ago he left some clothes at my house so I threw his jeans in the laundry but, out of habit, I checked the pockets before putting them in the washer.  I wasn't trying to pry—it's just a habit after losing a cell phone in the laundry a couple years back.  Well, I found an empty pill pack for Viagra in the pocket. I guess I shouldn't be upset about it but it was a bit of a shock ... and then I started getting those doubts that maybe he's not as attracted to me as I thought, and maybe it's the Viagra that makes him so enthusiastic.

My main reason for writing is to get a man's perspective on this.  You always say at the end of your column that you are a middle-aged man, and I didn't know who else to ask about this.  Instead of feeling hurt, should I be flattered that he wants to perform his very best for me?  Part of me thinks "if he thinks I'm sexy & I turn him on, why would he need Viagra?" but the other part of me thinks that he's doing it because he knows how much I enjoy our love-making and he wants to please me.  Honestly, I'm not at all bothered that he didn't tell me, just trying to figure out if I'm hurt that I'm not enough for him or if I'm flattered that he wants me to be satisfied.  So, I'd really like to get a man's perspective.  What do you think?

Signed,

To V Or Not To V, That Is The Question

Dear To V Or Not To V,

Should you be hurt? Should you be flattered? Neither. Your boyfriend doesn’t use Viagra because of or for you, at least not in the way that you mean. He uses it for him. He uses it primarily to avoid being embarrassed or humiliated by sexual failure or perceived inadequacy and secondarily because sex is fun and sex that lasts longer is more fun than sex that doesn’t. He uses Viagra either because he needs it to maintain an erection or he wants the freedom from worry it offers him. It really doesn’t have anything to do with you. In other words, you could be (insert favorite supermodel’s name here) and he would still be using Viagra.

So it certainly has nothing to do with your not being sexy enough. The fact that you’ve been in a satisfying relationship for three years indicates he thinks you’re plenty sexy. It’s not necessarily something to be flattered by, either. Yes, he wants you to enjoy sex with him, but that’s as much about how your enjoyment makes him feel as it is about how it makes you feel.

But you have nothing whatsoever to worry about, at least as far as this is concerned. You’ve enjoyed the best sex of your life for the past three years? That’s great. Keep right on enjoying it.