Oh what a fucking surprise. Go ahead, cheat, and keep telling yourself you're a good, faithful partner. Yup, just like I can be a good vegan and eat barbecue. Or a good feminist but pay my female employees less than my male ones. Because, really, what do words mean anyway? Or promises? Or my husband's love and trust? I mean, you know, compared to fucking whoever I want whenever I want.

Dan, that's to tell the cheated-on partner who's feeling absolutist. It's not to tell the cheater.

A person might have a certain small level of tolerance, when they're calm, for what cheating can be considered "yeah, shit happens over 30 years." And they're feeling zero tolerance right in the moment of being cheated on, maybe your reminder could help. Okay.

That is *not* what you tell the cheater-wannabe, for two reasons.

First, you shouldn't exploit up to the edge of someone's tolerance. You should, actually, be good and take any tolerance as a gift. If you exploit tolerance you don't deserve it and won't get it.

Second, even if someone is judging what little tiny cheating they can get tolerated, they and their pants are already overestimating and making excuses for themselves, because that's what they do. They don't need you helping them push boundaries even more.

First SOFT, although you describe yourself as mature at 25 or so, you've been with your partner for 10 years, which means you've been together since you were teens in high school. That's an enternity for some your age. I know people far older who can't claim a ten year-long relationship. On the other hand, many people your age have had multiple relationships and multiple sex partners, because few people marry their one and only partner. Given that, I think you and Mr. SOFT need to discuss exploring connections outside your relationship. After 10 years, you should have built up a reservoir of trust that you two can draw upon to navigate some opening in your relationship. And if done right, you two can enjoy the best of both worlds, a lifetime with one person and exploration with other people.

That said, you only have a reservoir of trust to draw upon if you stop cheating with your coworker. Also, if you immediately jump into bed with your coworker, Mr. SOFT will correctly believe that opening your relationship was just a cover to sleep with this one person, so even if Mr. SOFT agrees to open your relationship up, don't sleep with your coworker.

Two last points. Having sex with a married coworker is not good for your career. Your colleagues likely suspect something is up between you two, and that's generally not good for your career.

Your passion for your married coworker may be nothing more than the rush of new relationship energy (NRE). NRE can severely cloud your judgement, which is all the more reason to take a big step back from your married coworker.

The the real question is on, who the fuck if responsible for the editing on this is one?

@4 was that supposed to be ironic?

Should you fuck your coworker?

Unless you are cast at the Ren Faire, a porn actress, or a better-sex instructor, the answer is NO.

This is doubly true because your coworker is married, and triple so because you are a woman. It's not fair, but the thing is, if you fuck your hot coworker, any and all drama that happens from that will be your fault, because everybody knows men are just led by their dicks and have no self-control and if you'd just kept your zipper zipped none of this would have happened. It's bullshit, of course, but it's also the way reality is. You might get some hot sex....and all of the career derailing, all of the bad performance reviews, all of the blame, all of the trouble.

(If you work at Ren Faire, then use safe words, use protection, and take the pointy parts of your costume off first.....)

Oh dear Late, it's Dan been typing while drinking again?
I got one third the way thru the letter and jumped to the comments.
I'm assuming Dan has told this girl to cheat. A read later problem.

Dan! Surprised at you! Better advice than cheating or getting away from work crush: Fess up "feelings" for coworker to the spouse. My wife of (then 10 years) fessed up to me, it was hard, she didn't get to fuck that particular guy, but 8 years later we are in a super happy open relationship! Wouldn't have happened if she didn't have the ovaries to just tell me. (Now she's glad she didn't fuck that particular guy).

Dan, if you need a vacation, please take one! Don't give crappy advice because you're feeling burned out.

@1 Totally agree. Horrible advice from Dan.

I’ve been reading this column for decades, and I think Dan’s really been slipping in the monogamy advice department the past couple of years. I know he actively promotes his coined word, “monogamish,” and supports the lifestyle and philosophy, but Newsflash: Not everyone thinks this way.

Really, how many people, upon learning that their supposedly monogamous partner has been cheating, will be ok hearing this: “C’mon honey, what’s a little cheating over the long term? Be reasonable! In fact, you really ought to give me credit for being monogamous most of the time!” Not many, especially with deception thrown in, which it almost certainly will be.

The LW gives no other reason than “because I wanna”…no lack of sex, no disagreements, no stated problems. “I wanna” is the very thinnest of reasons, and there are plenty of folks, perhaps outside of Dan’s circles, who’d consider this a dealbreaker and a sad lack of self-control. At the very least, the LW should recognize that an affair, should it come to light, has a real possibility of breaking up one or both of their relationships. If they're still willing to proceed, then maybe they should give their partners the courtesy of either informing them or breaking up.

But they probably won’t because they’re only thinking of themselves and what they want at this point. Cleverly, the LW wrote to Dan hoping he'd say "Go for it, the only problem I see is your uptight, close-minded partners." Well, she got the answer she wanted!

"Then the inevitable happened: we were sat chatting at work and then we were kissing. The sexual tension between us had been building for a long time."
This sounds like one of those it-just-happened excuses. It is never inevitable, especially(!) at work.

Dan maybe should have asked the LW more forcefully why 'I wanna' is so loud at the moment. If she forces herself to reflect honestly, it's likely to be for one of these reasons: 1) the LW has never had this type of connection before and realises she wants it to be the basis of a relationship. If yes, get out of both relationships and seek someone who offers that level of connection and is single. 2) the LW is sick of monogamy and wants to force the relationship openwards. If yes, have the conversation, and open up or say goodbye. Don't screw this guy though, because you work with him. 3) she does genuinely want the status quo to remain, but has never had to deal with temptation before. Answer: cut off all but essential professional contact with the tempter, and tell the partner about being tempted.

Ginnie @11: Absolutely agree! If making out with a colleague at work is so "inevitable," then how come in 30 years of working I've managed to neither participate in nor even witness it?

Agree completely @2. The advice is good when someone has been cheated on and a partner is genuinely remorseful. Not when someone is considering breaking a vow and wants an excuse.

Sometimes you don't get to fuck someone you want to fuck.
"Go ahead and cheat" is some crap advice. Deal with your relationship first, whether that means having another conversation about monogamishamy, breaking up, or re-committing. If you decide to recommit, I think you have to tell your partner about these feelings and let him in on the decision-making.
It may be that your relationship ends; that you are having this intense feeling about someone else because you are ready for your relationship to end. If so, that will hurt but it will be ok! But don't end it by having this affair, that's just maximizing the pain for everyone involved.

Wow, so many lies. You are immature, selfish, and horny. Stop rationalizing your behavior. Most importantly, stop lying to the world by presenting as monogamous. Monogamy is the biggest lie of all.

Spockerina @ 10: Agree that Dan has been slipping in the monogamy advice department lately and it seems like LW's like SOFT write in just so they can get Dan's "permission" to cheat.

SOFT's fling wouldn't even be classified as being "monogamish"; it'd just be straight up cheating - with no justification except for, as other commenters pointed out, "I wanna". What's more, she clearly doesn't just wanna fuck this guy; she fancies him on a deeper emotional level and wants to explore that as well. As such, the odds of this being a "one and done" deal are extremely slim and therefore, the odds of getting busted and immensely hurting their respective partners is extremely high.

And to cap it off, they're workmates!! Rubbish advice on this one Dan.

Dan is a Sex Advice Columnist, and not a Love Advice Columnist. When it comes to monogamishamy, cheating and affairs, Dan feigns ignorance at how Sex and Love support one another. [Sorry in advance for the length of this response, but I've been meaning to bring this up for a while.]

Yeah, yeah, humans are prone to temptation and have poor impulse control, so a few isolated cases of cheating are to be expected and excused. This is Dan's standard advice where Lizard Brain just begs for satisfaction. In a monogamous relationship, this would excuse a one-off "mistake", or a very brief affair, as long as it is accompanied by apologies, guilt, contrition and healing.

Dan also excuses infidelity when the relationship is opened to accommodate unmet lizard-brain needs. While he always advises caution in hammering out an open arrangement, he rarely addresses the likelihood that Love will emerge in the pursuit of Sex.

SOFT's situation seems to be a case where Love is developing, and once it's supported by Sex it may take root, blossom and then all bets are off for the previous relationships on both sides.

Dan seems more apt to compartmentalize Love and Sex. Maybe this is a sign of maturity or experience (lots and lots of experience?). Not everyone is so adept. Many people experience Love and Sex as deeply intertwined and linked. Many see Sex as an expression of Love. While most can't do Love without Sex, some actually can't do Sex without Love.

We know that when sex leaves a relationship, for whatever reason, love isn't far behind. The opposite also seems true. We don't call it ‘making love’ for nothing. Keep up that sort of intimacy with someone for long, and feelings of love may emerge, or, if they are already present, will be substantially reinforced.

That's where things get tricky. If the Love feelings just aren't there—if it's only physical attraction leading one to cheat, as Dan usually illustrates—the affair will quickly run its course. But if Love develops, the affair could go on for years. Then the cheater(s) and the cheatee(s) are in for a shit storm: the emotional equivalent of the Middle-East military quagmire.

Whenever Dan excuses minor infidelity with his monogamishamy position he never seems to suppose this as a possible outcome. My advice to SOFT would be to examine herself. Does she fall in love easily? Did the sex with her current boyfriend all those years ago tip the scales for her, feeding the love and sealing the deal? Is she feeling just as much or more love for the new fellow, and are the physical urges feeling like an expression of that love? If the answer is yes, as it seems to be from her reading her letter, then welcome to Afghanistan.

Even if she buries her feelings for the new guy, and changes jobs and cities, this situation may come up again, as at this point in life she hasn't adequately explored what it means to Love. She'll probably have to eventually admit to herself, and to her current boyfriend, that their own relationship was founded upon the common and immature basis of young love. Her deeper, more complex and mature emotional needs may never be met by her current boyfriend, and she will continue to seek out someone more suited to her, like this new fellow.

New Fellow seems like the perfect match! At this moment, at least. It's amazing that they found one another! I am tempted to advise her and New Fellow to both end their respective relationships and commit to their One True Love. But given consideration for her past propensity to fall in Love quickly, I won't. Instead, I would advise her to end her relationship with Boyfriend of Ten Years, and commit herself to freely seeking Love and desire more carefully, joyfully, and with fewer civilian casualties.

Dan I love your column but wtf. I'm with the others, this is straight up CPOS territory.

Yeah, she wrote so she could get Dan's permission to cheat.

But Dan's guess at the end I feel is the most important part. She's been with the same guy since she was a teenager... and at 25 she's barely stopped being one. She wants out. She should nut up and get rid of her high school safety blanket and start fucking all the other men she wants and give that poor schmuck a chance to be with someone more willing to settle.

Don't forget about the effect this will have on your employment if and when it blows up. Because 9 times out of 10, it does blow up. Either one or both partners will find out and cause a ruckus, or you'll decide to leave one or both partners to be with one another. Only that rare one in ten happens where the two of you part ways amicably with no one the wiser (except maybe you two).

So for the majority of those times, yeah, one or more relationships are going to be torpedoed. Maybe you're okay with that. What I'm asking is for you to consider the effect to your pocketbook when the fallout hits your employment. Because if I were your boss, I'd try to reassign or fire one or both of you immediately if I knew you were making out, flirting, and pursuing a relationship while on the job. It's incredibly unprofessional for most workplaces. And more likely, I'd just fire whichever one of you was the worst employee - problem solved.

Are you prepared to be the reason why your friend doesn't have a job? Are you prepared to be jobless? I would strongly suggest you both get your resumes together and start job hunting. Splitting up during work means 1) you (and your friend's) livelihood is no longer at risk, and 2) you'll find out if the infatuation is due to proximity rather than this 'connection' you've felt. You might find yourself looking at the budding relationship with new eyes when you're not working with this guy more hours than you spend with your steady.

Am I the only one who thought that LW and coworker should break off their pre-existing relationships to get together? There was no mention of the married coworker having kids, so it seems like better now than later. Also, then you can acknowledge the relationship to HR.

I'm surprised that so many people are surprised that Dan Savage rolls his eyes a bit at the concept of monogamy from teens til death.

@21: Well that's one way to destroy the fantasy.

just do it in the butt.

"Then the inevitable happened: we were sat chatting at work and then we were kissing

That reminds me of last week. I noticed a sweet little old lady leave her purse on a store counter. Then the inevitable happened: I grabbed it and began running.

Betraying the trust of someone you have promised to love and cherish forever is like getting a tattoo on your heart, it may fade in time but it will never completely go away. Cheating should be the last resort, not the first choice of a selfish, impulsive child. Take a long, hard look at yourself first and then your marriage and try to figure out why you are willing to tear it to pieces when, not if your husband finds out, and think about why giving your word on something means so little to you. If there is something wrong/unsatisfying/unworkable take steps to fix it first. That might include a discussion about opening up your marriage, but a moral, ethical person does that before they go fucking coworkers (which is a whole 'nother can of worms.)

@26 sorry, brain fart, ten-year relationship, not marriage. But advice is the same.

Thank you, #s 2, 3, 6, 10, 14,16, 17, 26.
I couldn't even get through Dan's response once I could see he was started on the hey, monogamy's hard. If you only slip up a couple times over a lifetime, you're doing it right line he's been following lately.

Yes, monogamy's hard. Yes, people need to weigh the strength and meaning of their long-time relationship if an infidelity has already occurred. People shouldn't say to themselves, when looking at the shiny new thing they want to fuck, "well, but, as Dan Savage, noted expert says, monogamy's hard. If I only slip up a couple times over a lifetime, I'm doing it right." And then just go ahead and do something they know or have extremely good reason to expect will bring pain to someone else (either someone they love or someone the shiny new thing loves) and possibly damage their own relationship, possibly irreparably (and shiny new thing's too), not to mention the whole work situation this particular scenario involves. And for what? Because I want it.

And GasparFagel nailed it @17--Dan never seems to take into account that for many people love and sex are intertwined or can be or become interdependent. Dan seems to assume that all acts of infidelity stay sealed off in some little box known as "getting your needs met." He gives countless examples of cherry-picked letters in which the writer cheated to "stay married and stay sane" and then the spouse's libido came "roaring back," so the virtuous cheater and their piece on the side simply turned off the extra-marital relationship. It doesn't always work that way. Once upon a time, I was in a marriage that was working in all ways except sexually. I tried to make that part of it work and was met by stubborn resistance from my husband. I cheated to stay married and stay sane, and guess what? My partner in crime and I fell in love. The fallout of that has never disappeared, not just for me, but for others.

Also, Dan seems to seriously overestimate the number of people who are going to be okay with opening up their established relationship, just as long as the partner who wants shiny new thing is honest. Maybe some will that wouldn't have--and maybe those opened relationships will work out, and maybe they wont. Maybe they'll close back down, or maybe they'll implode---but a lot of people won't consent to even trying to open their relationships. Then the one who wants the shiny thing will feel cheated out of it and resentful that they tried to do the right thing and still didn't get what they want ( which may lead to full-on cheating or simply to an emotional pulling away from their partner) and the partner who wants only monogamy will always feel insecure about the strength of their partner's attachment and commitment.

SOFT has several ethical choices:
1) Talk with her bf about opening up their relationship -- even if he agrees and is on board this doesn't mean she necessarily gets to fuck her co-worker.
2) Stay in her monogamous relationship with this man she seems to love.
3) Break up with bf and be free to pursue other legitimate relationships or casual sex (again, not necessarily with her co-worker, who, unless his wife agrees to open their marriage, is not legitimately or ethically available to her).

Sometimes the reality of this world is YOU CAN'T ALWAYS GET EVERY SINGLE THING YOU WANT for all kinds of reasons, and it wouldn't be a bad idea for an advice columnist to remind people of that from time to time. This letter represents one of those times.

I guess Dan's of the school of thought of "Better to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission".

In some circumstances, I think it's a reasonable position. But this is not one of them. SOFT needs to have a serious discussion with her coworker (about whether they're both ready and willing to have a relationship and accept the consequences to their respective, pre-existing relationships), and if the answer to that discussion is "yes", then have a serious discussion with her boyfriend about her decision to either open or end their relationship.

Because as others have pointed out, if she just fucks the new guy, the consequences will likely be bad for all four parties.

Just want to mention an additional potential complication of the advised approach. I think most people who've been caught cheating will attempt to minimize the consequences by claiming it was just that one time or just that one person or due to special and unusual circumstances. Sometimes that's true, often it's completely false. So someone who is mostly good at monogamy because they rarely cheat is also counting on their partner to be able to distinguish them from a serial cheater at a time when trust in the partner is low.

@28nocute. Excellent post!

She started this relationship in her mid-teens and Dan is treating it like it's a mature, lasting one? Clearly she needs to break up and sow her oats for a while, or she'll turn around, find out she's 40 and SOOOO unhappy and cheats for real. She shouldn't cheat. She should get out of this relationship.

This feels like a combination of Arthurian legend and ice dancing in the mid-late 90's. I get a vibration that LW sees herself as Guinevere, or perhaps Iseult, but this really makes me think of the period that began at the 1994 Winter Games (the year that was only two years after the last time, when the Summer/Winter games split up, and on top of it all they allowed professionals to reinstate as amateurs), with LW in the role of Oksana Grishuk.

All four disciplines had highly disputable outcomes (Gordeeva-Grinkov got a huge couples bonus over Mishkutionok-Dmitriev in the pairs; apparently nobody noticed at the time that Oksana Baiul did have a two-footed landing on her last jump; Elvis Stojko singled a triple Axel and had to put another in for his planned quad, which was a little more harmful to programme continuity than whatever weird thing happened on Alexei Urmanov's triple flip) but the dance dispute was three-sided. Torvill and Dean in their return were generally seen as spectacular, but they were marked down for "questionable" lifts, while Grishuk-Platov were not marked down for separations of more than ten seconds, leaving Usova-Zhulin and their rule-following programme to Italian film music in second place.

Grishuk-Platov remained in competition for the next cycle and won another Olympic gold, leaving a trail of competitions they won in which they got away with clear errors. Then in the late nineties Alexander Zhulin left Maya Usova for Oksana Grishuk both off and on the ice. But eventually Evgeni Platov paired with Ms Usova for a triumph over Grishuk-Zhulin for the world professional title, by which time Grishuk-Zhulin weren't even romantically linked any more.

Mr. Ven: The best post on this letter yet: thank you!

DonnyKlicious: thank you!

@32: I agree completely. But I'm more irked at the fact that this is Dan's go-to statement for anyone who wants to or does cheat these days.

Apologies sweet Dan, you weren't drinking, you were dog tired.
I've just read the letter, a few lines from Dan's response, the gist of which the panel have thrown up, I'll read it later.
LW. What a clear letter. Good you are looking for all the alternatives.
First up, don't cheat and stop kissing this guy. Then tell your man what is happening.
only do this, if the other guy is also going to front his wife with the truth.
The next step/s will then involve four people deciding, not just two.

Mid twenties, so you've been shacked up with your man since your teens? Can't imagine that. Every five minutes I was falling in love with a new boy at that age.

@17.... Thank you for the very good description of what I have felt for a long time but am usually too lazy/snarky to articulate. It is precisely the fact that Dan compartmentalizes love and sex so neatly that makes him - in my opinion - such a poor advice columnist for straight women. I mean, in addition to his poor understanding of female arousal, anatomy, and physiology, of course. Dan not only separates love and sex in a way that few straight women do (although many try), he also shows a longstanding disdain for the most common and typical features of straight woman's romantic needs and desires. He defines being GGG almost entirely in terms of sex acts and never in terms of providing emotional gestures of love, for instance. In fact in one of his most high profile interviews ever (Rolling Stone) he calls romantic gestures such as flowers or candles "all that female bullshit." As if it's entirely normal that a woman should indulge a man's desire for - oh, say, anal sex - but if she asks him to light a candle first she's being unreasonable. He refuses to understand that for most women thier sexual feelings are tied to their feelings about the entire relationship. He has spent a lot of time normalizing male patterns of arousal and marginalizing female patterns of arousal. Dan, although you are quite entertaining and I've been reading you since the very first 4 page issue of the Stranger (which I picked up in the Comet Tavern circa 1993), in afraid there is no other conclusion but that you are a misogynist. I accept that you aren't TRYING to be misogynist, but it's perfectly clear that you just don't care very much about female priorities in love or sex.

Jesus. On the Insufferability Scale of 1 through 10 everything about this letter, advice, and comments rates as a fucking 12. "An instant connection..." Oh brother.

Let that be a lesson to me. Be thankful of having a drama free relationship and life. And a great reminder why I should never read this rediculous column any more.

Good god.

70% what @17 said. 30% don't trash someone else's marriage to work out your own issues.

And to round up to 110%, ovary up and take some responsibility for your actions.

Dan, take a day off. You clearly need it. Normally I am a big fan, but this response is not good.

@17, 28: Those were both great contributions. I hope SOFT reads them.

"We are both 'soft' people: we care a lot about other people and the world in general, about the sense of right and wrong, and about the people we love."

"If polyamory was an option in our relationships we might be able to make that work. But not even monogamishness is an option for either of our partners."

"Or would we just kidding ourselves? Or do we have crazy hot amazing (or not, who knows) sex and then deal with the terrifying consequences?"

End it now.

To whom you choose to apply that is up to you, but you're already rationalizing fucking him anyway, consequences be damned, that's clear from the progression above. You've given no details about the time frame involved in all of this, so it's a safe assumption that you're still in the infatuation stage. If you "have crazy hot amazing sex" (note the passive voice: it simply happens, through no agency or fault of your own), by indulging a (possibly fleeting) urge at the expense of all else, you'll be giving up the right to call yourself a "soft" person that cares about other people: you'll be inflicting the sort of pain and despair that "soft" people don't willingly cause. The sort of pain that makes a person let out animal-caught-in-a-bear-trap noises when they're alone, overwhelmed with grief.

Take it from someone who spent most of last year making those noises himself, because his loved one acted on similar urges: betraying your own - as well as everyone else's - perception of you as a "soft" person is not worth it.

End it now.

Scratches and bent bumpers may also be inevitable when someone starts driving but we don't advise new drivers to crash head-on to "get it over with" straight out the gate.

I wouldn't recommend that the Letter Writer and her co worker do the nasty for one big reason.
They have pretty strong feelings for each other.. Compare to just a hormonal one night stand

Doing a Booty Call is not gong to help matters, they really like each other, in some ways how she describe her feelings and his, they seemed to falling in love with each other..

There are lots of landmines in this, married other people who don't know, same workplace, anyone who has been in a crazy relationship knows these are red flags to a therapist couch or lots of alcohol to drown one's sorrow after all this blows up in a thermonuclear way..

I guess my advice, which of course won't work, but get permission from both spouses, work out some ground rules, but everything will come to a halt when both partners are furious that their want to commit infidelity partners want a booty call outside of marriage...

The "Forgiveness is easier to ask than Permission" method would be these two co workers go on a business trip together, and get really drunk, have a messy bad fling in a Holiday Inn in the Midwest. Everyone wins, they get their booty call, they will regret it, and cry to their spouses it was just a one time thing. They will promised never do it again, while they planned the next rendezvous with champagne and at the Four Seasons..

Agree with all who diagnosed CPOS. Now addressing the how-do-I sublimate question:
Find new jobs. Cut each other out. Try to forget. Except for highly charged sexual situations with your husband. During those times you have permission to fantasize about Mr. Hot Emotionally Charged Guy.

That's my first suggestion. My second is to take to heart Dan's question about whether you're really all that happy with Husband or if you're just telling yourself that. (Forbidden sex is so much more fun when you're well and truly guilty.) If you're getting the idea you committed too young, get some counseling and work it out there. Consider cutting ties when you're in your mid-20s. Also, even if sex is pretty good, if you're feeling that itch, see if Husband would be open to doing new things sexually with you. Maybe fantasy play. Almost anything to switch it up. Pretend you met Husband for the first time. Think about that emotional connection with Mr. Hot, and see if there's something Husband might do to make you feel less adrift.

@Knat: I'm sorry you've had such a rough year and this painful experience; I hope that the clouds lift soon and you feel happier.

@Crinoline: well, they aren't married, and considering that SOFT met her partner when she was 15 years old, I think that she should take some time away from being in a committed relationship and just try being a single 25-year-old in the world. But other than that, I agree with your first paragraph. SOFT will hurt less and be less likely to do something that will hurt others if she keeps all contact between her and Mr. Hot Emotional Connection to a minimum that is only business-related. Absolutely no private conversations whatsoever, no matter the medium.

Ms Cute - And I commend you for the post that crossed with mine.

Ms Guera - And all the feminist-speak in Arabia will not whiten that little hand.

(Not a dig; it just seemed to match the mood.)

Knat@40; That sounds so painful. Hope you're feeling stronger now.

I agree with SublimeAfterglow @3 that NRE is the most likely explanation for this:

>> Instantly we clicked...We have the same life views, same interests, similar life dreams, etc. We are both pretty blown away by the connection we felt almost immediately >>

It's an illusion, built by brain chemicals. If you started dating, and living together, you would find out soon enough all the things that aren't so wonderful about each other. (As undead ayn rand wrote @23.)

Oh Ven, you're going to make me google, aren't you?

@40 That sentence you picked out is not in passive voice. "Do we have crazy hot amazing sex?" is active voice because "we" is both the subject and the agent of the sentence. She is included in "we", so there's no denying any agency there except to the extent that she's sharing it with the man. That sentence in passive voice would be "Is crazy hot amazing sex had by us?"

It's possible you're confusing a light verb (things like "have" "take" or "give" in phrases like "have sex", "take a shower" or "give a hug") for a passive verb. Even so, I don't really see why you would think a light verb is problematic though, it doesn't really hide agency in any way. If I say "Why are you shitting on my feelings?" vs. "Why are you taking a shit on my feelings?" the change from a heavy verb ("shit") to a light verb phrase ("take a shit") might give a different shade of meaning, but it's still very clear that the subject and agent of the sentence is "you" and it doesn't "let you off the hook" in any way. To make it passive as opposed to light verb phrasing, you would say something like "Why are my feelings being shit on by you?"

Carry on, just a linguist who gets annoyed at people taking a shit on the passive voice unjustifiably.

Standing ovations to both @17 and @28.

Long-time @29: Um, shouldn't she speak to the boyfriend first AND THEN the lover-to-be?

Gueralinda @37: Are you implying that bi women and lesbians don't follow the same emotional patterns you ascribe to straight ones? If so, could you explain the differences?

Thank you, Forky @50, you cunning linguist. That post bothered this pedant as well. :)

I think post 3, SublimeAfterglow, gave better advice than Dan did on this one ...

@BiDanFan @51 re @37 I think this post was simply a straight woman speaking from a straight woman's experience who didn't want to presume to know how it works for non-straight women. At least that's how it read to me.

Thanks ForkyMcSpoon @50. Im always up for random lessons on correct word usage.

Guerlinda @37:
I'm glad you could relate with aspects of my comment @17, but we can't presume Dan's compartmentalization of Love and Sex are due to a male perspective, much less misogyny. To view sex as an expression of love, intertwined and linked, to require love’s spark to kindle the flames of passion, isn't exclusively a female perspective, I can assure you (I'm a man, and that's how I'm wired. Or maybe I read too much Shakespeare as a child.). I sometimes envy those who seem to have such mastery and control over their emotions—never letting a little thing like sex ruin their day—but then it's often these same people who have a hard time controlling their baser urges.

That's why I politely chalked it up to his being more "mature" about relationships, or becoming more "adept" at this balancing act through experience (lots and lots of experience). Maybe it's to do with feeling desirable and confident? Maybe it's a gay male thing? I suppose if one feels confident enough in one's attractiveness, sex can be viewed casually as just "a good time" instead of a deeply significant event. Dan's pretty good looking, so I can see where his attitude may have developed.

nocutename @28:

Once upon a time, I was in a marriage that was working in all ways except sexually. I tried to make that part of it work and was met by stubborn resistance from my husband. I cheated to stay married and stay sane, and guess what? My partner in crime and I fell in love. The fallout of that has never disappeared, not just for me, but for others.

Yes, you did what my wife did, and is still doing. Welcome to Afghanistan. I've been here for 10 years now. Once Love walks in the room, you can't really blame anyone, can you? Except, in my case, myself for not getting an exit visa and leaving sooner. Now I'm just an empty shell who reads Dan Savage and the comments for clues on how people who still can feel love and lust behave.

Knat @40:
Sorry to hear you're making animal bear-trap noises. I used to make those. See above. Best advice to you is to move on as fast as possible, if you're able. If you're capable of finding a rebound situation do it at once. I wasn't, and didn't, and it destroyed me. Get some therapy, if your insurance covers it. And go for the intensive package. It was nice for me to unload to a paid professional, but the sessions were so spread out, they didn't have the desired outcome of preventing the PTSD-level wrinkle in my little ol' psyche.

@51: BiDanFan, I agree with Ginnie @54 that when gueralinda wrote @37, she was trying not to presume on the behalf of any group to which she doesn't belong. I don't think she was trying to slight bi and lesbian women; I think she was trying to be sensitive.

@gueralinda @49: The reference is to Lady Macbeth, (Macbeth, Act V, scene 1: "Here’s the smell of the blood still; all the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand"), but I'm not sure what Mr. Ven meant to imply by it. The context is that Lady Macbeth, having strongly urged, or bullied, or needled her husband into murder, has lost her mind, plagued by guilt. She is in a sort of fugue state, trying futilely to wash blood that isn't there off her hands.

Maybe Mr. Ven thought that your comment @37 had the feel of a rant about it, but I disagree. And even if it was a little ranty, I don't think it was altogether unwarranted. It certainly didn't sound crazy to me. I don't know that I'd go as far as you, but I do get irritated with Dan's tendency to compartmentalize sex and love and his assumption that everyone does or should do the same. I agree that Dan frequently doesn't seem to understand how many women feel about sex, although I hesitate to ascribe universal feelings or reactions to any group ever.

@ ForkyMcSpoon @50: I saw the misuse of "passive voice" @40, but I think that Knat was trying to express their (sorry, Knat, I don't know your gender and which pronoun you prefer) irritation with the overall attitude of inevitability that SOFT was adopting towards having an affair--as if forces beyond their control were pushing she and her co-worker together, absolving either or both of them of any responsibility (I can definitely see her floating towards "we just couldn't help it; our passion was so strong that we were swept away"). In that context, I had no real issue with the misattribution. But I always get excited when I find out there is a linguist on the thread. I've often thought that if I were to go back and do another graduate degree, it would be in linguistics. What do you do?

@GasparFagel @56: I'm sorry you're in so much pain. I have to say that I absolutely blame myself for everything I've done. I blame myself a lot for a lot. If anyone frequently resembles Lady Macbeth in her guilt-ridden state, it's me. I don't know that our situations are as comparable as you seem to assume. The man I was having an affair with and I broke up and neither of us told our respective spouses about the affair. A year after my affair ended, my marriage did, too. The affair served as a catalyst for that split, but so too did my ex-husband's continued refusal to try and address the issue that my sexual needs weren't being met as things were. My ex-husband still doesn't know about the affair. As for the man I cheated and fell in love with, we never saw each other again after the affair ended. We spoke on the phone approximately twice a year or less for six or seven years; in our last conversation we told each other that we each considered the other to have been one of (if not the) loves of our respective lives. He died suddenly last spring; I'm still grieving.

44- Nocute-- Good point. They're not married. I tend to conflate committed relationships in my mind, but they're not the same. With that in mind, I change my advice a little.

LW might first imagine how she'd feel if Mr. Married had those deep emotional sexual connections with lots of women, really visualize herself as one in a long line of affairs this guy was having. I'm not saying that's necessarily the case, but it sounds like it's a good possibility.

Then she should talk to Mr. Committed Relationship and say:

We've been together for so long, but have you thought about where this relationship is going, where you'd like it to go? Do we want to stay together and marry? Should we have children, make decisions together? We get along so well, but do we want to coast along like this forever? I'm not even sure what my answers to these questions are, but I thought I'd start asking them because it's not unreasonable for people in their mid-20s to think about the future on everything whether that's career, sexual partners, responsibilities, and I don't want to wake up at 40 feeling like I let my chances slide when I haven't even thought about what my chances are."

Then, for all we know, Mr. Committed may be having his doubts too. Or maybe he wants to marry and start a family. One way or the other, this is about a lot more than having an affair. It's about everything, and he should be consulted.

I had to scan the letter, because at my age I just can't with the predictable drama that tells the same, boring story: Person in a solid relationship with an "amazing" person, who's totally perfect for them - except now there's someone else, with whom the LW has a "mind-blowing" connection, and to do the right thing and shut down any romance or sex potential would hurt this other person too much. WHAT SHOULD THEY DO?!?!?!

Ah, youth.

Anyway, as soon as the LW mentioned that she's "monogamish", and her BF is strictly monogamous, it was clear that this relationship has a finite lifespan. I totally get that it's hard to leave a 10-year relationship, especially one that has guided one from adolescence to adulthood - but this one is going to end, sooner than later. The LW would do well to recognize that her needs aren't being met in the current relationship and exit on that basis, instead of seeking external approval for an affair that will end the relationship for her (come on - married coworker, odds are very low that this won't become known).

And I agree with the commenter at the very beginning who said that the advice Dan is giving here is for the cheated-on party, not for someone considering cheating.

I think it's a real shame that women and men are not more frequently friends. I think it's a great shame that situations like the one described by SOFT end up exploding friendships.

The masses are not with you on this one, Dan. I have a suggestion that I don't often hear that has worked for me for my whole life - some cheating when I was younger to figure it all out but nothing that *accidentally* exploded relationships.

For context, I'm a cis-gendered male in my late 30s, I've been single, married, divorced, in DNDT and open, closed, short & long-term relationships. I grew up with a lot of women around, sisters, female cousins, aunts, their female friends. I've always had women as friends and I've known my oldest friend since elementary school. I am so happy I have her and other friends who are women in my life. Perhaps I just have (learned) great in-relatonship dick control or perhaps my experience is less common but here's something I just about never hear anyone give as advice to monogamous people in these situations:

Keep hanging out with the people you want to fuck but don't fuck them.

You will still want to fuck them but the feeling will pass. It may take a long time. Maybe a year or more with ups and downs. Feel free to take a break at times like right now but hang out again in a week even if it suuuuucks. Have a cry by yourself when you need to. Maybe after the feeling goes away, it will come back in a year. But it will go away again if you just keep hanging out and don't kiss or fuck or other things like kissing and fucking. Initially, hang out in public places or with their partner then do as Dan suggests and "plow that energy into your partner." And it goes without saying, if it's ok for you to fuck them, fuck them. But if it isn't, just don't.

Why put yourself through this? Because people with whom you really truly "click" are rare. Don't waste a potentially incredible friendship with a great person. Those people are so worth having in your life. Don't waste the opportunity to go through life with them just because you wanted to fuck each other at a few points in what could be a decades-long friendship.

One more note on how to do this, and I'm assuming you want to stay with your current partner. Ideally don't tell your friend you want to fuck them and give flat and unambiguous "NO" signals when you get the idea that they may also want to fuck you. And probably don't lay this on your partner in a moment of honesty unless you are close enough for that or unless it's to talk about opening up your relationship, if you think they'd be ok with that. Or if it's to talk about breaking up.

One day you'll have incredible friends you once wanted to fuck and it will be worth it.

I think others have mentioned, but I will add this also. Even if SOFT were completely single and unattached, this relationship would be a workplace affair with an older, more senior, married coworker. This is likely to end badly.
It seems likely to me that she really wants out of her long term relationship. "Out" might mean ending it completely, or "out" might mean ending the strictly monogamous nature of it, but either way she wants out. She should inform her partner of this. If she still wants to pursue the affair (and if the coworker also still wants the affair once SOFT would no longer be equally a cheater - which is a big "if") then she should find another job FIRST, then pursue the affair.

Workplace affairs a big no no.. That is obvious. Has this young woman got the opportunity to find another job?
I think this emotional affair has gone too far to be ignored. If she's strong enough to cut it cold turkey, good on her.
Otherwise, time to own up to their respective partners what has occurred.

Ms Cute - I said it wasn't a dig, and I'd certainly hope to be counted as one of the leaders in the Anti-Compartmentalization camp. #37 didn't have the feel of a rant but of a Final Verdict. I just got the image of (poor?) Mr Savage striving mightily to reverse the judgement against him, but to no avail his regular lecturing of Teh Menz or generous allowances for Women's Socialization, both when justified and when perhaps a mild stretch; his Doom is Assured. And if he really referred to flowers or candles as "female [blank]" then I've little sympathy for him.

(I was going to throw in a reference to the commedia dell'arte, only, double-checking, discovered that the version I'd encountered of it appeared to be quite wrong. Bother.)

@51 - not at all, I simply am speaking as a straight woman. I don't presume to speak for all straight women (hence the frequent use of modifiers such as "some" and "many") and even less for bi or lesbian women.

@54 thanks - you read me right

While I like "monogamish" as a way of saying "mostly monogamous, but don't mind a little fiddling around at the edges", I really wish the terminology would change to focus on how a person feels about their partner's escapades. Lots of people would like the ability to explore a bit on the side. Not as many are keen on offering their partner the same latitude.

And while an affair with a married, older co-worker is a horrible idea for all the reasons everyone else is mentioning, this is a side of "monogamy is hard" that Dan could stand to focus on. Monogamy does not mean that you're so incredibly stricken with your partner that you don't notice anybody else. That level of strong infatuation never lasts. Monogamy does mean knowing that you will be tempted from time to time, and knowing how to avoid putting yourself into compromising positions. Leaving aside the interoffice drama bomb that SOFT is potentially looking at, it'd be useful to know if this was more about her wanting to explore, or more about her realizing for the first time that she could actually have strong feels for someone new.

And just to further clarify what I hope was already clear - the extent to which love and sex are intertwined for an individual exists along a spectrum, it's not binary. I believe (others may disagree) that straight women and straight men tend to fall along opposite sides of the spectrum, with much overlap in the middle. I leave out gay people and bi people because I don't feel like I have enough experience to generalize. I myself have been in a married monogamous relationship for about 18 years now, and no doubt that colors my perspective.

Thanks for explaining the reference to me, everyone. And Venn - yes, I'm afraid that for me personally, the judgement is final. Like I said, I've read every single column since the first, plus uncounted SLLOTD and a few books by Dan. I have decided that his body of work, taken as a whole, is somewhat misogynist.

Doesn't mean he doesn't have important and interesting things to say, and I will keep reading him, because it's fun and often educational. I just felt the time had come to call him out.

And now going to find a link to the Rolling Stone article.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/new…

It's a long interview, worth reading in toto. I'm not going to reread right now and find the quote I was referring to. Also, part of the conversation focuses on how much straight men like Dan for his generous loopholes concerning faithfulness.

Gueralinda; Dan misogynist, I don't see him like that. He seems equal opportunity on the branching out option to me.
Obviously as a gay man in gay relationships, he doesn't have the experience of heterosexual dynamics.
The cheating suggestion does seem to be a little loose in his suggestions sometimes, and the special times it is warranted does have changing goalposts.
If straight men use Dan's opinions as reasons for cheating, then they are idiots and need to be dumped for not thinking for themselves.

Lava - sure he's equal oppurtunity on branching out, but because of the (average) differences in male and female desire to do so, that's sort of like saying he gives equal permission to carnivores and vegetarians to eat foie gras. His technical evenhandedness is irrelevant when the situation he purports to address is not even in the first place. And by the way as I wrote above this isn't all about monogamy - he champions the right to behave in various ways that appeal more to men than to women (on average), such as plenty of sexual variety, while denigrating those needs and desires that (generally) are
More important to women, such as attention to the more "soft, romantic" aspects of a relationship. I don't want to start a giant shit-storm, but I also see as part of this his support of prostitution and porn WITHOUT DISCUSSION of the ways those industries can harm women. I'm drowning in qualifiers here but I'm
Going to qualify again that I am not anti porn or sex work per se - only that the abusive nature of large segments of those industries needs to be part of the conversation if you care about women's rights and needs. Dan has not done so.

gueralinda@37 I disagree with your reading.

Your link doesn’t go to a full Rolling Stone interview with Dan, just to some outtakes with Dan for an article Tim Dickinson wrote on Gay Marriage. And there’s nothing about female bullshit.

I think you mean the 2014 interview Dan did for Playboy, available here: http://www.playboy.com/articles/playboy-…

In that interview, he said:
>> Young women write me that they pressed and pressed their boyfriends to share their secret fantasies with them and then were terrified when they found out what those fantasies were—when it’s not “I want to fill the bed with rose petals and light a thousand tea candles in the bedroom.” That’s not a male fantasy. Girls tell me about Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and romantic comedies and all that bullshit. I always tell my female young-adult readers, “Careful. If you press him about his fantasy, you’re much likelier to hear ‘a three-way with you and your sister’ than ‘a trip to Paris.’ ” Male sexuality is crazy, perverse. Men are testosterone-pickled dick monsters. We just are. >>

So, I don’t see him saying that rose petals and candles (or Mr. Darcy & romantic comedies) are invalid, unreasonable fantasies. When he says “bullshit,” he means: “boy, that would never fucking turn me on.” He’s saying the typical female fantasy (Mr. Darcy) sounds like bullshit to a typical man. And that the typical male fantasy (a three-way with your sister) is going to sound like bullshit to a typical woman.

This is in the context of talking about being clear about one’s “price of admission” (what one needs in a relationship), and what one is willing to pay (how far one will to go meet the other person’s needs).

If roses & candles are something you need to feel aroused, and you can find someone willing to do that often enough to keep you happy, Dan doesn’t have a problem with that. He thinks that’s awesome. And then if that person who is keeping you happy with your roses & candles (they’re not aroused by roses & candles – that’s mostly for you, though they like seeing you aroused) – if that person wants a threeway, well, maybe you should consider doing that for them, even if it isn’t your thing. Or at least participating in building a fantasy about it in bed without throwing a fit about how insecure it makes you feel.

Dan is out there saying that straight men should think it’s normal to focus on a woman’s pleasure for 45 minutes. How many other sex advice columnists say that? Here’s an example from 1997:

>> "Her concerns are pretty common," says Ellen Barnard, co-owner of A Woman's Touch in Madison, Wisconsin (600 Williamson Street, 608-250-1928, www.a-womans-touch.com). "I don't think she needs a moratorium, she just needs to know that her arousal time is longer without a vibrator. She will have to allow more time--a lot more time." ... Even women who become orgasmic using vibrators can learn to have orgasms without them by following the arousal patterns they learn with vibrators. If you can re-create the pattern over a longer period of time, you can have orgasms with oral sex, with hands, or whatever. But remember, without vibrators, it usually takes women from 45 minutes to an hour." Another reason I'm glad I'm gay--45 minutes? I've got things to do! >>

Yes, I think he’s gotten more lenient with his get-out-of-cheating-free cards. And I don’t agree with his shift. But our society’s declaration that men should be monogamous is a pretty recent invention. People used to find it normal for men to cheat on their wives. In that historical context... if the choice is between short marriages which end while the kids are still young, or some dishonesty and marriages which seem happy and last till the kids are out of the home...I can see why Dan leans towards the latter, especially since right now the cheater isn’t likely to bring home an incurable, deadly disease. (That could change, without warning.)

TLDR: I don’t see Dan as misogynistic; I see him as prioritizing stable families over honesty.

gueralinda@70 re sex work -- I don't see anything misogynistic about this interview between Dan and Mistress Matisse on the importance of decriminalizing sex work.
http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/20…

What alternatives to decriminalization do you propose?

Erica - thank you for fixing my error about the interviews and finding the quote. embarrassed to have posted the wrong link. That is what I was referencing. My read on it is different from yours - I found it very dismissive, especially when combined with many years of hearing advice about how everybody (again with the evenhandedness) should be GGG when it comes to sex acts but little to no attention to emotional needs in relationships. Someone above said Dan is a sex advice columnist, not a love advice columnist, and perhaps that's a valid comment. But someone who understood and was sympathetic with female priorities might have suggested, when confronted with a question from a straight man who complains his wife has lost ineterest in sex, that the man in question examine the state of the relationship as a whole. That perhaps, along with thinking about how long it's been since his last blowjob, he think about how long it's been since he told his wife he loved her, or that she's beautiful. I cannot ever recall hearing anything like that - Dan is much more
Likely to suggest a call girl. Or, if we are lucky, some attention to hygiene.
I find your comment about Dan supporting stable families through cheating to be quite odd, but I admit my viewpoint is not neutral. Basically, my complaint is that Dan views (typical) male sexuality as normative and (typical) female sexuality as divergent, and that his advice comes from that stance. It's an opinion. I've always enjoyed your comments and think you are one of the most insightful and helpful regulars on the thread. We can agree to disagree.

PS I'll read the interview and respond later. Without even reading it I can say that if it doesn't include a discussion of coerced sex work then it's misogynistic - because that's like having a discussion about legalizing heroine without discussing addiction. Which - disclaimer- is not meant to be a comparison between heroine addiction and prostitution, just a comment on the importance of context. Sheesh this is tiring. Now retiring to s hot bath with a glass of wine. Perhaps also rose petals.

gueralinda @73: the problem with this: "how long it's been since he told his wife he loved her" is that after a sexual mismatch grows severe, the wife is likely to (mis)hear any loving statements from her husband as cruel pressure to have sex. I think Dan feels that the marriage counseling industry has been unreasonably weighted towards women and that counselors thus routinely act as if men feeling rejected when they have been rejected means that they are entitled assholes. So advising a man to be nice to his wife doesn't lead to more sex or any improvement in his perception of what's going on. Nor does it improve the marriage for the wife, because she still has an unhappy husband. Generally speaking, you can't fix unhappy (straight) marriages without addressing male unhappiness.

@74 As I understand it, Mistress Matisse's take on coerced sex work is "so long as sex work is criminalized someone who is being abused by a pimp or a brothel owner can't go to the police." (from the interview). So decriminalization is the first step towards reducing coerced sex work.

PS (@73) I don't mind agreeing to disagree eventually, but I feel we haven't reached the point of saying that yet.

Yea, if those are examples of your opinions, I fear we will not get anywhere near "agree to disagree." I hear both of those statements as really very problematic. Of course male
Unhappiness must be addressed to fix a
Marriage - but must it be at the expense of female happiness? If Dan's (and implicitly your) viewpoint is that counsellors are uniformly biased toward women, that hardly predisposes me to listen to your further views on the subject. It may often be the case, in a patirarchial culture, that a man IS being rejected for being an entitled asshole. Refusing to acknowledge that heterosexual relationships exist in the context of a sexist society IS bias. That doesn't mean the woman is always right - far from it. I anticipate my comments will be read that way but that's a very shallow reading. One of the things that people fail to understand about systemic sexism is that it cripples BOTH sexes. Sometimes women act out in ways that are childish and cruel in response to unfairly biased expectations. I think it's fairly hilarious that your response to my complaint of Dan normalizing and prioritizing male sexuality is to talk about how marriage counsellors ought to normalize and prioritize male sexuality.

And it is true that unwilling prositutes may be afraid to come forward for fear of prosecution. It is also true that there is more than one way to address that fear. I see it as analogous to the problems the undocumented community faces in accessing law enforcement (I have a lot more experience with this population than I do with prositutes). In this case, advocates have put pressure on police agencies - with a great deal of success locally - to ensure that when undocumented people come to the police with complaints (the effort has mostly been around domestic violence) they can be assured that they will not be referred to ICE for deportation proceedings. I think a similar arrangement might be made for women or girls who want official help to exit coercive sex work.

I didn't mean to make myself a focus in the comments, but I wanted illustrate how painful the repercussions would likely be for everyone involved, if they did indulge in this urge. But thank you all for the kind words.

Time has helped. I now have far more good days than bad, and once I have my health insurance sorted out, I plan to see a therapist to sort out those lingering "what ifs" and "if onlys" and the unexpected flare ups. Getting involved with someone else often crosses my mind, and I think it would help. I'll feel more confident in that once I've had more time to work on myself, both emotionally and physically. Currently I'm keeping that notion in mind until we're all safely on the other side of Valentine's Day.

My apologies to the language experts. I appreciate you being polite about it, and not breaking out the torches and pitchforks. I was using the terms as a layperson might, as nocutename so accurately explained in @57. (And to nocutename: I had used male pronouns, so you were safe to assume that, but thank you for the care in word choice anyway. I'm a cis-gendered hetero white male. "Default" on the character select screen, that's me.)

@78: Correction, I was using the terms as a layperson like me understands them and would apply them. I certainly do not have a high level of command of the English language. The public education system did all they could, and I learned only as much on that subject as the state mandated.

@77, I didn't say counselors should prioritize male sexuality. I said they shouldn't erase it and make it illegitimate. I shouldn't speak to that issue, though, since I don't have much personal experience, I just thought that was what was motivating Dan's commitment to giving voice to male sexuality.

@Nocute, I love you.

@gueralinda (beautiful war?) I don't think DSavage is a misogynist at all. His compassion and firm lines toward consent vis a vi women and sexual assault should be required reading for boys. I think it comes through much more on his podcast (where I started) than here.

However, I think he has a raging blind spot. He isn't a woman; he's a dude. So he sees sex through dude eyes. I also agree with NoCute and others that "opening the relationship"
is a bit pie in the sky for many normative hetero relationships. In truth, he's lived his life as a sexual outlier, due to the nature of homosexuality and its marginalization for so many years (which I very much disagree with). It's to be expected that he is around people more flexible toward alternative relationships.

But I don't know how much I buy the women fall in love when they have sex. I didn't and don't since my mid twenties. That said, I agree totally that sex with someone with whom you really have chemistry and fire, like this coworker, is dynamite for men and women.

Otherwise, I 100% agree that this is bad news all around. I think LW needs to break the f up and date around a bunch. So does her bf. Maybe they come back together, maybe they don't. So be it.

This all reminds me how much that fire still flickers, even in rough times, with my hubster. I need to give the man a hug.

@Seriously, nocute, do you ever pitch for the other side. I totally would marry you.

@70 Linda. I do agree especially re the porn debate.. And I'd say the fallout here can hurt males as well as females.
I'm guessing it effects females more adversely because some males want to be able to treat women just like they see them treated in some porn.
And yes, discussion is out, cause boys need porn!
The sex worker debate, I see Dan supporting choice, without duress, for workers. And I do agree with that.
And he gets all cute and romantic re Terry, so I'm not sure I agree with you saying he doesn't support the softer ways of relationships.
The cheating issue, here, I see inconsistency and way too much optimism that all will fly in the end.

That bath with a glass of wine and rose petals sounds good, Linda. Hope you enjoyed it.
My main beef re males and relationships is how poorly emotionally prepared some males appear to be to handle heartache. Where women can moan and groan to their female friends and slowly repair, I believe a lot of men hold their pain in, as their male to male friendships just don't know how to help each other thru heartache.
Maybe this is changing , I hope it is. I don't see it in my sons' relationships. Their hearts get broken they wail to me or go it alone.
That's a totally off your points topic, I know.

@85. It's a concern, not a beef. And maybe this is part of why many males present such a cavalier attitude to emotional issues around sex, as a form
of self protection.
And if the vulnerable emotions of heartache are not shared, then it can sometimes turn to anger and violence towards others and/ or self. Hence the higher rates of male suicide. Males attacking or killing their ex or current partners.

SOFT, if you think that people in your workplace don't know that you and this guy are googly about each other, you're blind. And they're laughing about it. Think about it.

@50 'To make it passive as opposed to light verb phrasing, you would say something like "Why are my feelings being shit on by you?"‎'
‎
I thought the past tense/past participle of shit was 'shat'. No? I've been correcting my step-son. ‎

And also, SOFT, some of your workplace colleagues (who are laughing about this -- you were kissing at work? Jesus...) might be inclined to a little schadenfreude-ishness and just happen to say something to your partner or this guy's wife.

Ms Erica - MAJOR correction: Mr Darcy IS an unreasonable fantasy - at least if one asks for the whole package, which these days would include someone with an eight-figure income in pursuit of ... maybe a part-time research assistant (remember how Lady Bertram, the former Miss Maria Ward, with her seven thousand pounds, was considered three thousand pounds short of any equitable claim to a baronet, while Miss Elizabeth Bennet will have less than one thousand); that's rather the point. I acknowledge that some who fantasize about Mr D just want the, "by you I was properly humbled," bit, which is a different conversation.

I also acknowledge that "unreasonable" does not mean "invalid".

What an interesting discussion. I don't think Dan is a misogynist, although it's possible Dan is missing out on some heterosexual power dynamics. But so what? Every advice columnist brings their own perspective, and none of them represent the One True Way.

A few years ago Dan might have told this LW to DTMFA, or rather Dump The Nice But Incompatible Partner Already. Now Dan seems to be giving the go ahead to cheat in more of these situations. What's the reason for the change, Dan? That would make a fascinating column.

It's interesting (and great) that most of the commentariat isn't bothered by moral issues so much as the life consequences of cheating. Should an advice columnist be required to state in big flashing letters You Will Get Fired, Dummy, or is it OK to assume that LWs are bright enough to work these things out for themselves?

Ms Guera - I'm not really taking sides much; I've often observed that Mr Savage might well make the short list of those people whose standing in a hypothetical Feminist/Misogynist debate would be most hotly disputed.

[One of the things that people fail to understand about systemic sexism is that it cripples BOTH sexes. Sometimes women act out in ways that are childish and cruel in response to unfairly biased expectations.]

I wish your side would make a strong case against women who choose/agree to be breadwinners and then quickly fall out of love with their househusbands. The determinist side has been making a lot of hay about how Men are attracted to Women for Fertility and Women are attracted to Men for Resources and Therefore We Must Order All Society Along Those Lines.

Oh, and I think "heroine addiction" (in #74) is brilliant - an easy frontrunner for Freudian Slip of the Year. Ms Cute, I hope, will agree.

NoCute, Ginnie, thanks for clarifying Gueralinda's comments. I've heard loads and loads of "men are from Mars, women are from Venus" generalisations but none seem to separate "men" and "women" out by sexual orientation, so the wording seemed odd to me.

Thank you Gaspar @56 for illustrating that while Dan may indeed have an anti-monogamy bias, it's not an anti-woman bias. And I'm sorry you're in this situation, it sounds terrible. Hugs.

Having caught up on the thread. I think Dan's words are not to be dismissive of women's fantasies. The story was told more to illustrate a "be careful what you ask for" bit of advice to women who have been fooled by the "bullshit" in romance novels, that that's not what your typical straight bloke is thinking.

I also think it's odd to characterise the ability to separate sex and love as "mature." In my life, it's been the opposite. When younger, I wanted to have sex without emotion in order to protect myself from being hurt. Now that I am older, I realise that I can be hurt and it's not the end of the world, so I needn't be so afraid of getting attached. I can love without losing myself completely. So I can cultivate longer-term, non-monogamous relationships, I can tell partners "I love you," I can develop strong warm feelings and know that even if the relationship ends, I am going to be okay.

And I fail to see how men being happier in their marriages means women will be unhappier. Dan's advice envisions couples BOTH being happier in their relationship as a result of a better sex life. How is "have more sex, be happier with your partner" anti woman?

You should tell your partner that you have a crush on this guy, then stay the hell away from this guy. I did this with my partner and it hurt him, but made it easier to not cheat, because then he knows what's up. It also gives you a chance to see how he handles this new situation too. If he acts like a dick for a while or guilts you, you now know your partners love is only conditional and it wont last. If you've been together ten years and not once before felt this way about anyone else then you really love your partner and know that in the long haul you can make it work. If you stop seeing the other guy you'll forget about him after a year or two. If you feel like out of the relationship like dan suspects at the end, it may make you feel better to know that sometimes people break up and get back together after some personal growth and exploring alone. I broke up with mine a year or so after that crush (who I did not seek out after breakup) and mainly just focused on non relationship stuff in life, self development, with just a bit of sexual fun. He did the same. We talked on the phone and eventually realized that besides still loving each other, all the things we didn't like (well almost all) fixed themselves in our time apart. Twenties are a rough time of gaining experience and becoming a better person to yourself and others. Sometimes the best way to do that is to change our environments. Physical, mental, emotional, and perhaps spiritual. Good luck.

@95:

"How is "have more sex, be happier with your partner" anti woman?"

Underlining this is the assumption that men want sex and women don't. (Not your assumption BiDadFan). So more sex answers the husband's needs (because men are only ever interested in sex, right?) and dismisses the wife's needs (wives don't want sex, right? It's icky). I think this devolves back to the point - I believe perhaps it was Seandr, but maybe someone else - that the first advice men always get when sex drops off is to start doing more chores around the house. Women need something "different" to be happy than men.

As time has gone on, I think this is so impossible to answer in any type of global way. I have heard from women transitioning to men that when they get amped up on testosterone, their interest in sex sky rockets, so I tend to believe there are some biological differences between men and women on average. But that average doesn't seem to really matter because we are dealing with a specific man or a specific woman. Our relationships are so much more complicated than that.

Which leads me to the conclusion that when the sex - resentment - etc. goes off the rails, it takes something akin to counseling to bring it back on the rails.

@95.

I also wanted to add that your view on sex being divorced from emotion is also very interesting. I was glad when I reached a place where sex wasn't so fraught for me.

Ah, sitting around and talking about how you have to be "good" and not have sex is so hot, isn't it? It's like the best foreplay ever.

Dark Horse - while the genralization about sex being the only thing matters to men and "icky" to women was obviously sarcastic, I hope you know that isn't what I was saying. I was saying that on average, I think women are more likely than men to have drops in libido when there are problems in the relationship. When men complain about loss of wife's sex drive, it only makes sense to look at the relationship as a whole. Talking with Erica P last night, she told me that advocating such attention is a sign of bias against men by counsellors (or that Dan took that position). I was responding to that assertion and I may have used a little shorthand in such a way that made my position look more simplistic than I meant it to.

Last comment from me (probably). I'd just like to thank everyone here - given the nature of the conversation, this is one of the most civil and respctful comment sections I can remember. I think I was the hottest-under-collar of anyone here, but nobody has gotten personal or insulting at all. Pats on the back all around!!

Now starteth the workweek - adios all.