Sex advice with Suzi Godson: Boyfriend can’t be bothered with foreplay

My boyfriend has never shown any interest in foreplay. Despite my telling him it would be nice to have a bit more preamble, nothing has changed. It’s not just the unsatisfying sex that bothers me, but the fact that he is so inconsiderate about what I want. What can I do about it?

It requires self-confidence to ask a man to pay more attention to your sexual needs. You clearly feel you’ve tried, but the words “a bit more preamble” sound so coy that I wonder if you got your message across. If you weren’t explicit with him, there is a chance that he doesn’t understand the important role of foreplay in female sexual arousal, so it would certainly be worth having that conversation again.

When women fantasise or watch pornography in private, they tend to find it easier to orgasm, but in a one-to-one situation, particularly with a relatively new partner, female arousal can be more elusive, so without foreplay it becomes more difficult to achieve orgasm.