Real talk · Him & him

My husband and I asked every couple we know why the sex stopped. Not one of them said "we stopped wanting it."

After three years of being the one who always asks, I finally get it: horny was never the problem. The begging was. The couples who got out of it do one weird thing. Ours is the Two-Yes Rule, and an aphrodisiac we take together.

Theo M., 39, Minneapolis · together 9 years
6 min read

For three years I was the one who asked. Me at 11 PM, rehearsing the ask in my head while Sam scrolled his phone. Most nights I heard "not tonight." Some nights I didn't even try.

Then we got a little drunk at our own dinner party and asked our friends why they stopped. Their answers explained three years of my life.

These days Sam is the one who drags me upstairs after dinner. More than 10,000 couples follow the same rule now.

Three years of being the one who asks

When we started dating, a look across the kitchen was enough. A guy on Reddit said it best:

Then his job got bigger, we bought the house, we got a dog who sleeps between us like a chaperone. And I became the one who asks. The first two years, I asked nicely. By the third year I was begging, and I hated how it sounded.

So I tried to fix it:

• Scheduling sex. Sundays at 8. By week three it felt like a dentist appointment.
• My new cologne. $118. Sam said I smelled nice and fell asleep.
• Talking about it, again. Every talk ended with Sam saying sorry and me feeling like I'd filed a complaint.
• The blue pill. Sam tried one "for fun." Getting hard was never his problem. Getting started was.

The night it broke, I lay there rehearsing the ask for twenty minutes, then turned off the lamp and thought: we're roommates now. Nice roommates who share a dog.

So we asked every couple we know

Two weeks later we had four couples over. Ken, 58, was joking about his and Ray's "scheduled sex era." After two glasses of wine I asked the table: "When did you guys stop? And why?"

"We never stopped wanting it. We stopped starting it."

— Luis

Pete got tired of hearing no, so he quit asking. Ray said nobody tells two guys who's supposed to make the first move. Sam was staring at me, because that was us, word for word.

Over the next month we asked at brunch and in the group chat. Fourteen couples. Not one said "we stopped wanting it." Every one said a version of this: nobody wants to be the one who asks.

Horny was never the problem. The begging was.

Most couples don't stop wanting each other. They stop starting.

After a few years, one guy ends up being the one who asks, and every "not tonight" makes the next ask harder. The other guy feels the pressure in every ask, and pressure kills the mood fast. When I said that out loud, Sam went, "Yeah. That's me."

Then there's the advice we all swallowed: wait for the mood, because if you have to plan it, it's over.

That's the real reason we stopped: the wanting was still there, and the start was broken.

Where the loop goes if nobody breaks it

I tried the other option: I stopped asking, just to see. It lasted 41 days. Nothing happened, and I'm not sure Sam noticed it was a test.

First you ask less, then you stop, then you go to bed at different times. A guy in his fifties wrote this:

Nobody leaves. It goes flat: best friends, chosen family, two guys who love each other and don't touch.

The happy couples all had one weird thing in common

Back at that dinner, Dev held up his wrist. He and Marcus are the couple everyone envies. He had on a braided bracelet, red and black. "On means I'm in," he said. "Off means not tonight, and nobody has to say it."

Turns out couples use whatever's lying around. Ken and Ray play cards, and the loser picks what happens upstairs. One couple on Reddit throws a sock at each other.

Every couple at our table wanted what one guy on Reddit had with his ex:

A signal is the next best thing, because it replaces the ask. Sam wouldn't be saying no to me. He'd be saying no to a bracelet.

Why the bracelet still wasn't enough

So we borrowed Dev's. That week I put it on four nights out of seven. Sam put it on zero. The bracelet had moved the ask from my mouth to my wrist, and I was still lying there waiting for an answer.

Dev laughed when I told him. "Oh, I'm the one who puts it on. Like ninety percent of the time."

That's the flaw in any signal you wear: somebody has to put it on first.

Everything we'd tried had the same problem. Someone still had to ask.

So we made the Two-Yes Rule

Nobody goes first and nobody waits for an answer. It's two yeses at the same moment, or a no that hurts nobody.

For that, the signal had to change. We'd take it at the same time, one each. We'd feel it, because a bracelet never turned anybody on. And it would start at dinner, so we'd have all evening to think about it. I needed a bracelet you could eat.

I went looking for a bracelet you can eat

At 1 AM I typed "aphrodisiac" into Reddit. Someone had already asked for me:

TikTok was full of cubes. Every box said "for him and her," and every video was a wife talking about her husband. Nothing there was made for two husbands. Then Dev texted me.

One cube each, eight in a box, so four nights for two. Somebody had built it for couples where nobody wants to ask. I read the reviews first:

Freaky Cubes: one cube each, two yeses

Freaky Cubes are chili-coated aphrodisiac gummies made for two. How the Two-Yes Rule works in our house now:

• The box goes on the table at dinner. Nobody says anything about it.
• If I want tonight, I take a cube. If Sam wants tonight, he takes one.
• Two cubes gone means two yeses. One cube means not tonight, and nobody got turned down.

The aphrodisiac heats us both up, and the rule means nobody has to ask for it.

See the box Sam and I use →

What happens when we both take an aphrodisiac at once

The chili hits first: sweet for a second, then heat on both our tongues.

About 30 minutes later, around dessert, the rest kicks in. My face gets warm. Sam's hand lands on my thigh under the table and stays there.

Then he's behind me at the sink with his mouth on my neck while I pretend to rinse a glass. Two husbands, two yeses, and he's on me before the dishes are done.

A bracelet could never do that. If only one of us is turned on, someone has to ask. With both of us burning, nobody asks: he grabs me and doesn't let go.

Maca root, horny goat weed and muira puama have been used as aphrodisiacs for centuries. Caffeine with L-theanine keeps us up past ten, and the chili coating brings the heat.

Never beg again: our first 7 nights

1. Night 1

   Ten minutes of laughing at our burning mouths like teenagers. Then Sam stopped laughing and pulled me out of my chair. We didn't make it to the bedroom.

2. Night 4

   Last cubes in the first box. Sam put it on the table before I sat down, the first thing he'd started in three years. I stepped out so he wouldn't see my face. He followed me into the hallway.

3. Night 7

   I didn't rehearse anything. "Not tonight" doesn't sting anymore, because nobody says it: the box goes back in the drawer. When it does come out, Sam wants a second round.

That's why we tell friends to start with two boxes. One box is four nights, and it clicked for us after night four.

What couples say after a week

What a Friday looks like now

I get home at 6:30 and the box is already on the table. Neither of us has said the word sex all day. We each take one, and his foot finds mine under the table.

By dessert he's in my lap. Around 1 AM he wakes me up for round two. Our neighbor asked Sam why he's been whistling.

This post used to make me feel sick, because it was mine too:

Now he's the one who reaches for the box first.

What it costs

Real ingredients and a real chili coating, in a box made for couples like us. That costs more to make than candy with a sexy name.

So I don't compare it to a $5 gas-station pill. I compare it to the $118 cologne and a $340 hotel weekend that ended with us asleep by 10:40.

Two boxes bought one at a time would be $59.98. "2 Boxes" is $44.98 (save 25%), and it's what we started with: eight nights for two. A single box is $29.99.

Heads-up: the $44.98 launch price ends at midnight tonight.

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The other option is what I did for three years: wait for the mood, rehearse the ask, take the "not tonight." It never got better. It got harder to start.

The only catch: this batch is almost gone.

For me this was never about how often. It was about being his husband again instead of his favorite roommate.

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Questions people ask us

The launch price ends at midnight, and there isn't much of this batch left. I waited three years. I wouldn't wait until tomorrow.

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