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I'm in my 50s and happily married for 10 years to my second wife. She has known my full sexuality from the start, including that I love being degraded and humiliated by cruel women. I have a very strong foot fetish, enjoy every aspect of cuckoldry, including forced cream pie eating, and similar scenes. I also get very turned on by physical punishments, such as face slapped and trampling. But the ultimate excitement for me is being caned. Before I was with my current wife I saw a professional Domme who was a genuine sadist. She gave me beatings that were transcendental.

My wife willingly participates in some of my fetishes, especially those that focus on foot worship, and she will exchange cuckold fantasies with gusto. But she places great value on monogamy and is too uncomfortable ever to turn that fantasy into reality. She's more flexible on pain (face slapping, nipple clamps, etc.) and has in the past given me several breathtaking beatings with a cane. In recent years, however, she's drawn back from whipping because she doesn't like hurting me.

I love my wife very much and want to respect her limits. But as I've gone through therapy and lost some of the shame I carried, my desire for caning has become much stronger—almost beyond my ability to control. I've suggested having a beating done by a pro domme a few times a year. My old Domme lives in another state and would be perfect for the assignment. My question, I guess, is how best to explain my need and how hard I can really push for it. I really think it would increase my happiness greatly and make me a better husband.

Can't Abstain Needed Excitement

First, can it be described as "forced" cream pie eating if you like cream pies and want to eat them? I mean, it can. Of course it can. But should it be? (Asking for a straight friend who's reading this over my shoulder.)

Moving on, CANE, I'm so glad to hear therapy actually helped you lose the shame you felt about your sexuality and your kinks. You must have had a smart, sex-positive therapist who knows an interest in BDSM isn't evidence of mental illness and that it isn't something you need to suppress. Like other sexual interests, BDSM—even "extreme" BDSM practices like caning—can be acted on in healthy ways with other consenting adults. Extrapolating from current research, perhaps those interests should be acted on with other partners—more on that in a minute.

Psychiatrists, therapists, and scientists haven't been the kind to BDSM and kinksters, historically tossing them under the bus/into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The DSM V (the current version) now labels BDSM as a problem only if the practitioner feels "personal distress about their interest," which represents progress but it's still a problem. (Or it's still problematic, as the kids say.) It's essentially the same "compromise" we homos were offered by the American Psychiatric Association a few decades ago, as Slate explained a few years ago:

In 1952, the DSM I officially categorized homosexuality as a mental disorder. As the gay rights movement gathered momentum in the 1960s, however, the psychiatric community introduced a diagnostic compromise by saying that people who were comfortable with their sexual orientation did not have a mental disorder. The APA triumphantly removed general homosexuality from the DSM in 1973. But for people who were "in conflict with" their homosexuality, they introduced a new condition instead: “sexual orientation disturbance” (SOD). The 1980 DSM III replaced SOD with "ego-dystonic homosexuality," but the basic principle remained the same: Happy homosexuals did not have a mental disorder, while unhappy ones did.

What the APA refused to acknowledge: unhappy homos weren't unhappy on account of their gayness, but on account of the stigma, shame, rejection, and violence—physical, spiritual, economic, familial—they were subjected to by homophobic breeders.

Unfortunately, CANE, this is where many therapists and psychiatrists are with BDSM today*: Happy Doms/subs/switches don't have a mental disorder, but unhappy Doms/subs/switches do. This approach is bullshit (stigma, shame, etc.), especially since recent research suggests those who practice BDSM—those who actually do it, not just those who fantasize about it—may be psychologically healthier than the average sexually-active adult:

BDSM practitioners were less neurotic, more extraverted, more open to new experiences, more conscientious, less rejection sensitive, had higher subjective well-being, yet were less agreeable... We conclude that BDSM may be thought of as a recreational leisure, rather than the expression of psychopathological processes.

- "Psychological Characteristics of BDSM Practitioners," published in 2013 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine

This is just one of several recent studies that have come to the same conclusion. This doesn't mean BDSM all by itself makes people happier and healthier and everyone, kinky or not, should practice BDSM for the social and mental health benefits. But someone who is out there practicing BDSM, and is a part of the BDSM community (where most subjects for these studies have been drawn from), someone who has thought through their kinks, learned to accept themselves and their sexualities, and found a way to act on them that's healthy and self-actualizing? Apparently that can create a kind of positive-mental-health-feedback loop.

So, CANE, you might wanna start the conversation with your wife with science—science agrees that indulging your desire for caning could, like you said, increase your happiness and actually make you a better husband. And science recognizes your interest in caning—so long as that's all you do with your pro-Dom—as a kind of "recreational leisure," not a form (necessarily) of sexual contact, so perhaps that language can get you off the monogamy hook.

That said, CANE, your wife sounds pretty amazing—she comes through with face slapping, tit clamping, foot worshipping, and cuckold fantasizing. I don't think you should pressure her to cane you; she gave it a try, it wasn't for her, and Doms (pro and otherwise) are allowed to have limits. Ultimately going without caning may be the price of admission you have to pay to be with an otherwise GGG and highly accommodating spouse.


*At least it looks that way—if I'm wrong, APA-ers, please write in to correct me.

Listen to my podcast, the Savage Lovecast, at www.savagelovecast.com.