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

Dear How to Do It,

Last week my husband bit me on the ass without permission during sex. It wasn’t overly hard, but it did leave marks that lasted a few days. When I told him I felt a sense of violation at his not clearing it with me first, he said I was making a big deal over nothing and he was just trying to “spice things up.” When I was discussing this with my sister, she had a diabolical solution for how I should get back at him.

She said I should try involving my teeth the next time I’m blowing him to “spice things up” and see how he likes it. I’m tempted to take her advice. Would it be a good idea to even the score?

—Once Bitten

Dear Once Bitten,

I don’t think it’s a great idea to retaliate by biting back. It’s true that your husband should not have dismissed your legitimate boundaries as making a big deal over nothing, and perhaps biting him back would be a way to get your message across. But! If he did feel that your reaction was outsized (not necessarily in message but in the way you delivered it), inflicting conscious harm on him would almost certainly be taken as yet another escalation. I don’t know how much rational thought will actually be conveyed by a bite. Also, some people enjoy biting and being bitten. I agree with you that this is behavior that should be discussed ahead of time, but if we give your husband the benefit of the doubt, there was probably at least a half-assed assumption there that you could have found the biting erotic. (Also, he seems inexperienced in this, so it’s also possible he didn’t know the strength of his own bite—which is why it’s important to, you know, talk about and practice these things before you unleash them in bed.) On the other hand, you know he will not enjoy having his dick bitten, or at least that’s what you’re calculating. In love, intentions matter.

The more constructive thing to do would be to reiterate your feelings in a follow-up conversation. Have it when you’re both calm and at peace. You can definitely talk about how it made you feel, but I think if you want to be super practical, emphasize that you don’t want it to happen again. Raking him over the coals is probably going to lead to more tension, but you don’t need to let him off the hook entirely. Alternatively, you can remind him when you’re starting to make out or when he next is going down on you that you don’t want to be bitten so that it’s at the front of his mind when the sex begins.

—Rich

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