Q: I had a stroke a year ago. The woman I was dating at the time stepped away. I have no hard feelings but I long for intimacy again. I am profoundly grateful that I don’t have any major outward injuries from the stroke, but my stamina is still very low and might always be. That makes me self-conscious and insecure about sex. Would it be “oversharing” if I told someone about my stroke before we go to bed for the first time? It seems like it will kill the mood and almost certainly make things less fun. Am I obligated to share this information? —Outwardly OK Privately Struggling
Q: My friend’s grandmother was walking through a park when she was accosted by a man asking for sex. (Yes, my friend’s grandmother.) The man wasn’t violent. It was more of a plea for physical affection but definitely one that was made in a rapey way. He had something in his hand but it wasn’t a weapon: it was a negative COVID-19 test. He showed it to her as if to say, “It’s OK! I’m not a real threat!” Is this what we’ve come to as a society? Is the isolation people have suffered over the last year going to result in the rate of sexual assault going up? —Pandemic’s Awful Reality Keeps Scaring
A: This passes my Permissible Secret Perving test (which I unpack at length in an upcoming book)—it passes the PSP test so long as the other woman doesn’t know your boyfriend is there and never finds out your boyfriend was there—but it fails the Golden Rule test. Meaning, this probably isn’t something you would want others doing unto you and therefore isn’t something you should do unto others. So Jesus thinks you shouldn’t do this, SPIED, and I think . . . well, I don’t think you should. That’s too strong a word. But I definitely think you could.
