The Luv Doc: Awkward Subjects Like Ice Cream

Dear Luv Doc,

My girlfriend is awesome ... really. She's been around for more than a year, loves me, puts up with me, pampers me, challenges me, and we enjoy being together. We are a great match ... Well, there is one thing. She lacks an adventurous spirit in the bedroom. She is definitely sexy (a consensus 9+), but her proclivities fall more toward June Cleaver than Madonna. Or to reference ice cream, she likes homemade vanilla and I like the flavor of the month, maybe black cherry with all the toppings this time. She thinks licking the cone should be saved for "special occasions" like birthdays and anniversaries, but loves it (and so do I) when I taste her soft serve until it melts, almost every time. She is no doubt a keeper, but even being direct with her about my favorite flavors and toppings hasn't changed the direction of things at the ice cream counter. Any thought on how this might change for the better?

– Frozen

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Here's a fun fact about ice cream: America's favorite ice cream flavor is vanilla! WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU, AMERICA?!?!?! Whenever I see someone with a vanilla ice cream cone I just want to slap it out of their hand and scream, "You don't deserve ice cream!!!" If you're going to shamelessly eat vanilla ice cream in public, at least have the decency to make it a dip cone or cover it in sprinkles, which I am told are called "jimmies" in some of the more perverted backwoods of the Northeast (I'm looking at you, Philly). Plain, unadulterated vanilla, though? It better be Mexican and drenched in coffee, chocolate, and tequila, or YOU'RE ON MY GODDAMNED LIST!

Oh, and all you Dairy Queen lovers need to zip it. People who live in small towns know that the Dairy Queen dessert menu is something to be tolerated until your population sign can justify a Braum's. Do you want to know the real reason the Blizzard got invented? Because Dairy Queen employees would cram literally anything into Dairy Queen's tasteless soft serve to make it palatable: gummy bears, shoelaces, fiberglass, cat litter. Sure, there were some misses along the way, but eventually they figured out a workable ratio and now small-town Type 2 diabetics are getting their extremities lopped off at a rate that rivals even the most impressively war-torn Third World countries. Don't believe me? Next time you're in a Dairy Queen, whip out a tape measure and start measuring ankles.

Wait a minute, I just realized that you were maybe using the ice cream thing as a metaphor so as not to offend the more delicate Chronicle readers. Well done, sir. One of my bigger failings as a writer is that I tend to imagine my readers as a mashup of Villanelle from Killing Eve and Dennis Hopper's character in Blue Velvet. Thirty-plus years of living in Austin has jaded me to a much greater degree than if I had lived in some tamer place like South Beach, Las Vegas, or the San Fernando Valley, so it's nice to be reminded on occasion that there are still people in the world that refer to blow jobs as "cone lickings." Also, kudos on making ice cream wonderfully genderless. After reading your missive I had a wonderful image of people walking around with giant melting balls of ice cream in their pants. Oh dear, I just said "cream in their pants."

Now, I am assuming that when you were direct about your "favorite flavors and toppings" you weren't employing your delightful metaphor, otherwise, you might have just ended up with a freezer full of Blue Bell. When it comes to behavioral changes, a didactic approach isn't always the most successful. As the old adage goes, true change must come from within. You are on the right track modeling the type of sexual behavior you would like to see from your girlfriend as well as sharing your sexual desires with her, but have you asked her why she is reticent? It might come down to something as simple as basic hygiene, lack of confidence, or it might be something more complicated and perhaps ultimately insurmountable. The only way you are going to know is to ask and truly listen. Regardless, it sounds like you have an amazing relationship that will only get sweeter when you can feel comfortable talking about really awkward subjects like ice cream.