How Do You Deal If Your Lover is a Sex-Crazed Maniac?

The other week, I had coffee with a friend who wanted to tell me about a serious problem she was having with the boyfriend she'd been dating for about six months: The man was a sex-crazed maniac.

How does a person (like my friend) deal with a lover or partner who is obsessed with getting it on? Or who, at least, wants sex more often than you do — which seems to be a fairly common phenomenon for women after the couple gets to the six-month mark or so.

You want to make him happy, and (within reason) give him what he wants — but when what he wants to do is something that demands your physical and erotic cooperation, and you're not into it, "compromising" is tough. You can't say, "Look, I really need my rest, so why don't I just sleep while you have your way with me?"

And yet when people begin to hear "I'm not in the mood" two times out of three, they sometimes begin to think, "Hmm, she's just not that into me."

So, folks, how do you handle any discrepancy between your sex drive and your dude's?

Do you say, "I think we have to face the fact that I'm into sex about 50 percent less than you are — so please do not take it as a sign when I only want to do it one time out of every two times you do?"

Or … ?