On this week’s So You Think You’re an Adult, one woman is concerned about her boyfriend’s musical taste during sex - and affinity for Lionel Richie.
“My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost 4 months now,” she told Moncrieff.
“At first our sex life was what you would describe as normal - a few tunes in the background on Spotify, nothing unusual.
“However, over the past month or so he has begun to make music a more central part of our intimacy - He loves soft rock and likes to play Lionel Richie while we make love.
“He sings along to the words and sometimes he even uses my vibrator as a microphone.”
While this was amusing initially, the boyfriend has now began syncing their “lovemaking” to the rhythm of the songs.
“Whenever I suggest we turn off the music, he loses interest in the sex,” she said.
'Pick something a bit faster'
Writer Barbara Scully said if you were going to choose any music to have sex to, “Lionel Richie is probably the last one”.
“Pick something a bit faster,” she said.
“If he’s syncing his lovemaking to Lionel Richie, the problem is Lionel is going too slow.
“That vibrator could be put to better use than him singing into it.”
'Jog along'
Barbara said if there’s something the girlfriend “really hates” about sex with music, she needs to ask her boyfriend to turn it off.
“But then you say he loses interest – that's a bit weird, how does that happen?” she said.
“If he can’t perform without Lionel Richie in his ear, well then get him ear pods or whatever and stick them in so he’s using the rhythm and you’re being spared the torture of Lionel Richie.”
She also pointed out that only four months in a relationship, the girlfriend is free to “jog along”.
Beyond Lionel Richie
Broadcaster Declan Buckley argued there could be underlying reasons the boyfriend listens to Lionel Richie.
“You get to this awkward where you know each other, but you’re not 100% comfortable with each other,” he said.
“The easiest way to be comfortable in an intimate thing is to have a laugh, to be having fun.
“This kind of thing reads to me like someone who is not entirely comfortable. When the music or whatever the distraction is is gone, it becomes a very self-conscious moment.”
He also agreed, however, that four months in, she wouldn’t be wrong to find this behaviour a deal breaker.