Sex advice: Talking will lead to more touching

Q. My girlfriend is a really great and generous person, but she is lazy in bed, and barely ever bothers with foreplay.

I’ve tried to discuss it before and ask her to indulge me every so often, but she starts and gives up after a few minutes, letting me take the lead. I don’t want to force her to do anything she seems reluctant to do, but I’d like us to take turns.

A. While I can see why you might interpret your girlfriend’s sexual reticence as “laziness”, people who are genuinely lazy as lovers tend to be fairly unappealing in other areas too. Since your girlfriend’s reluctance to reciprocate seems so incongruent with her otherwise generous personality, I would suggest that her behaviour reflects some underlying anxiety, uncertainty or inexperience around sex.