Perfect answer, Dan. Honestly, I think she would be better off without this guy. The other Bergeren book you should recommend is his one about women's desire -- a large part of which is feeling desired by one's partner. It sounds like she isn't getting that much at all. I felt so bad for her, and so mad at him, reading this letter. He hoodwinked her into marrying him and now hurts her (with physical pain, or expressing chronic dissatisfaction) every time they fuck. I think she should DTMFA.

Despite the careful description of the wife, the husband sounds like a capital A asshole. So he hides his primary sexual interest from his spouse until AFTER the vows. Then when she cautiously decides to accomodate him he decides that's not good enough because she is still allowed some control (what is his ideal, you crying, begging him to stop, please stop, while he violently rapes you, and only finds out afterwards that you were serious?). So he resorts to uninterested fucking, but trying to make sure it hurts you to take the edge off. He's a real prize, isn't he?

His problem is not that he's a sadist. The problem is that he's being a selfish douchenozzle in the sexual arena. Maybe opening things up could help, but I would definitely include working with a sex positive couples counselor as well, since I'd bet he has issues that go beyond his unrealized fetish.

@3: This is exactly what I was getting out of the letter too. She wanted to be GGG, but he said "nah, safewords are for wusses, I'm just going to bruise your cervix and pout at you for being super awesome but not insane".

DTMFA

I need to amend my reply. The thing that got my skin crawling with this letter is that she only mention her own pleasure once, in a self-deprecating way. She says "indulge me in the sex I enjoy" which underscores how she seems to feel her pleasure is a burden, that is, when she's able to think beyond not getting hurt. I don't know how old she is, or how she was raised, or if it's all a result of her marriage, but it seems really unhealthy how his sexual satisfaction is orders of magnitude more important than hers -- in both their minds.

Hrm, he has zero desire to rein it in with the wife or consider her feelings, what's she going to do when her husband is in jail for pushing a scenario too far with any subsequent girlfriend?

Besides that she's not going to get good sex, even if he has a girlfriend taking his abuse on the side. Sounds as if he only enjoys it when she doesn't.

@3: "what is his ideal, you crying, begging him to stop, please stop, while he violently rapes you, and only finds out afterwards that you were serious"

I think he wants her seriously afraid of him. Hence the repeat lines that can't be uncrossed and "what he gets off on is 1. his not having to exercise that much control and 2. pushing the other person past whatever limits or boundaries they have"

AKA, this isn't roleplaying (not an issue of effort, it just requires too much consent), he's going to find the point of trust and steamroller past, then keep pushing every time.

Yeah like how do you know you're a sadist yet you don't know the first thing about how BSDM works? In the 21st century?

Dude is lying about several things. Letting him go find a sub isn't going to solve anything. Find out what his real damage is.

DTMFA, pronto. Sounds like a manipulative sack of shit from here, that she's put up with at least 4 years too long.

Yeah, Mr. Savage seems to have been jumping to "go monogamish" a lot lately. What about the option of finding a BDSM partner with whom he has sexualized activity but not actually intercourse? That's on the table too.

I find myself agreeing with lynx and wxPDX. This guy might be a genuine but unimaginative kinkster who has yet to work out a sex-life/everything-else balance, but he might just be a jerk.

I'm just going to pound my head a bit against the wall regarding another iteration of "X years into my marriage I realized I should be honest with my spouse about (insert extreme kink that would have been a clear dealbreaker back in the dating stage)."

NCA, I hope you read the comments. Especially at 5, regarding how what he wants looms so huge as the thing for you both to worry about, compared to what you want. Plus: I'm a boring person not remotely into S&M, and I know he's doing it wildly wrong. Enough to get tossed out of any BDSM group. I'm guessing the partners with whom he violated those limits in the past may not have been masochists enjoying a consensual scenario, but regular girlfriends with whom he wasn't honest about why he was hurting them, the same way he was together with you for years before he mentioned it?

Working without safewords means it's all real. ALL of it. ALL OF IT. Which is to say, he wants to be crossing the line to where he is hurting you against your will, which is quite simply domestic violence. Yes, it really is that simple.

You might want to question whether you do in fact want to be married to a domestic violence abuser, which he unquestionably wants to be, if he isn't already.

Tell your fucking asshole husband that if he doesn't want safewords, then he has to live with the consequences -- all of them, which might well include that you snap after the most recent abuse session, that cast iron frying pans are fucking heavy, and that he has to sleep sometime.

And he may find himself in for a deep shock when he tries that shit out in the world. On the minor end, he will find himself with a reputation, and nobody willing to play. On the major end he may find himself on the receiving end of a richly deserved revenge beating after he disrespects the boundaries of the wrong person.

Also, Dan's answer on monogamishamy is dismayingly short on reciprocity. If he gets to go find someone who is delighted to have sex his way, the same goes for you.

And the evidence all says that in your case that person isn't going to be Hubby, not the way Dan implied that he would suddenly start liking it more (or hell, liking it at all) once his kink need was being met. If Hubby liked vanilla at all, he would be doing it happily, and only trying to supplement with kink. Instead what passes for vanilla from him is uninspired, one-sided, and oh, just happens to ... hurt. No, this is clearly someone who is interested only in his kink or anything that is as close to it as he can push for. That means that you are going to need to look elsewhere to get the vanilla sex that you deserve every bit as much as he deserves to see his needs met.

He doesn't want safewords and he doesn't want to consider his partner's limits?

Fuck. This. Guy. If he wasn't dressing this up as a kink, it would be clear exactly what this is: it's domestic abuse. BDSM without consent is assault, same as sex without consent is rape. It's the consent that makes it, y'know, a genuine mutual activity. He's giving sadists a bad name by trying to hide his abuse behind what should be consensual pleasure.

DTMFA. He is an asshole of the highest order. Sure, you could try a monogamish solution where he goes and gets involved in the local scene, but I don't foresee that going well. What I foresee is people blacklisting him (at best) as his reputation gets around and he abuses more people.

And if you do somehow negotiate staying married, please don't have kids. Even if hubby is successful in finding adult playmates and rules he can stick to for recreational times, I doubt if he could avoid child abuse when they inevitably really piss him off.

@17: Eesh, I suppose that is something to consider. He's not a "kinky" sadist. He's an all-encompassing one.

And I was thinking of just this kink when Mr Savage was going on about bringing a kink to one's partner as if one were giving a present. Even done properly, that just doesn't seem like the right sell for this one, though I could see the approach working for other kinks.

ITA with 3 and the rest - I'm shocked that Dan didn't call out that this asshat waited until a year after marriage to let this very important sexual need slip?!? DTMFA. Twice.

It seems pretty clear that this guy isn't just a *sexual* sadist. RUN. NOW.

A sadist who doesn't want to exercise control sounds like a rapist waiting to happen.

Every comment above me is the typical SLLOTD response:

1. Dump him
2. He's a rapist

You guys are jumping to conclusions.

LW must love the guy and the guy must have a lot of redeeming qualities or she'd have left him already. Give her some credit. You guys make it sound like she's a naïve idiot who doesn't have a clue.
The guy's got a tough fetish and he's making at least a half-assed attempt to control it. They both dislike the sex, not just her.
We're only hearing her side of things.

I swear, if it was up to SLOG commenters, EVERY man would be in prison for rape and EVERY woman would be single and a victim.

Dan's zeal to sell the monogamish lifestyle caused his advice to veer way off here...so far off course he's actually endangering the LW and husbands potential play partners.

As a kinky, very sex pos woman whose worked to help a lot of abused women and children....your husband isn't into BDSM, he's into DV, sexual assault, and rape....and the fantasy won't do it for him. It. Will. Never. Be. Enough.

He's already crossed a line w you and I can guarantee what his is admitting to you about his past is sugar-coated. Some of his exes would probably say they were assaulted, possibly some even raped.

He may be too far gone to save or he may be retrainable, but he has to want to change...and he doesn't want to. It's the violation that gets him off. Consensual victims won't do it. So sending him to,other women won't fix this. And this type of desire always escalates.

Are you willing to look another woman in the eye and deal with it if she tells you she said no to anal and he did it anyway? Cause that's where this is headed.

@14. If this man tries this in the real world, your scenarios are the best case ones. More likely, he'll be charged with sexual assault or rape. He shouldn't play w anyone until he's done some therapy to learn to abide by safe words and stay within the parameters of consent. BDSM can be done well and wisely, but what he's proposing is sexual assault.

If he goes over the line with a wife he claims to love, he'll have no compunction about ignoring the consent boundaries of others.

@23: "he's making at least a half-assed attempt to control it"

He has an admitted history of this behavior and is continuing to refuse to control it, you can say whatever you like about Sloggers, but at least we read the article before posting on it.

I also love the "They both dislike the sex, not just her.
We're only hearing her side of things."

Sure, he's breaching consent with her as with many others, but what about HIS sexual needs?

Way to be a creeper, Forka.

After rereading the letter, what jumped out at me was "A year into our marriage, my husband told me he is a sexual sadist. He felt guilty about it, as his tendencies had led him to cross some lines in past relationships"

The fact that he crossed lines in the past, and waited until a year after they were married to tell this woman, leads me to be even more DTMFA.

@23: If it looks like a rapist and admits to having raped women in the past, there's a pretty good chance it's a rapist.

@28,
He admitted to raping women in the past? Where'd you read that?

@26/27,

Letters just like this have appeared before. Dan's response is usually the same. And the comments are ALWAYS the same:

1. Man is rapist
2. Woman is naïve. Must dump man immediately because she doesn't realize he's rapist.
3. Whatever LW wrote is the whole story. Period. Judgment must pass immediately (and the judgment is always that all men are rapists and all woman are naïve fools. yes all.)

Soooooooo predictable. But hell, don't believe what I write. Do a search on these things and see for yourself.

But, just for posterity, what does THIS letter writer actually say?

1. He wants her to give in to his fetish.
2. She doesn't give in (really. She doesn't... read what she wrote).
3. He gives her crappy sex that she consents to.
4. They both seem to dislike the totally consensual sex they get.

Sounds to me like: A) he's controlling his fetish, pouting but controlling, and B) she's consenting to crappy sex, pouting but consenting.

And this is all HIS fault, of course. Just because. Not just because she said so, but because you think so.

@30: "He admitted to raping women in the past? Where'd you read that?"

In the post. Read it again.

"3. He gives her crappy sex that she consents to."

This is also incorrect, as she makes very clear in the letter.

And shit, "Not just because she said so"

this is all we have to go on.

Well, see, @28, it's not a fetish. It's a criminal act. No safeword? No respecting boundaries? Yes felony.

Sure, we have only her word for that, but that's the advice: Friend, if you're being accurate, run, don't walk, away from this asshat.

Whoops. I mean @31.

@32,
You mean this line?

He felt guilty about it [sadism], as his tendencies had led him to cross some lines in past relationships.

That translates to rape? I don't know... did they say no? Did he cross lines that were specifically laid out or lines that he thought they wouldn't want crossed but were never actually discussed by anyone?

Or is there something else in there that I'm not seeing that = rape?

And where, please, does she state she didn't consent to the crappy sex they were having? She wrote she "resents him," and she wrote she "stopped wanting to have sex at all." Where did she write that she said no? She was in pain? Ok, did she write "I was in pain and asked him to stop and he wouldn't?" I don't see what you're talking about.

@34: And if she's the lying crazy-woman and he's completely innocent as Urgutha states and believes no matter what, that's all the more reason for them to split.

@34/35,

He said he wanted sadistic sex.

She said she wants a safeword to do that.

He said he didn't want a safeword for that.

So they didn't have sadistic sex.

I mean... she specifically wrote this line:

So we didn't do anything and we didn't talk about it anymore.

...

That's a felony?

Don't read more into this than what she wrote. I read nothing... NOTHING... that suggests he forced her to do anything against her will. She didn't like it, she felt in pain from it, but he didn't force her.

@37,
Don't be so knee-jerk about it... I don't think she's a lying crazy-woman. I don't think he's innocent.

They both sound like people who should have communicated a hell of a lot more about their sexual desires BEFORE they got fucking married. Him especially (but since he can't defend himself, I'll admonish them equally).

But sexual communication is still a tough road for a lot of people, which sucks but is hopefully getting better as the old anti-sex puritans die out, so I can at least understand why he didn't bring it up earlier even if I can't excuse it.

@36: "I offered the possibility of exploring his predilections as long as we could start of slowly and use a safe word. He didn't think this would work well, as part of what he gets off on is 1. his not having to exercise that much control and 2. pushing the other person past whatever limits or boundaries they have."

along with "there are lines I’m just not willing to let anyone cross and I’m not sure that will satisfy him. Additionally he feels emotionally crappy after he hurts me."

There's current boundary pushing now, intentionally past her comfort, beyond where she set lines. (She's not talking about the cervix-pounding.)

@39: "They both sound like people who should have communicated a hell of a lot more about their sexual desires BEFORE they got fucking married. Him especially (but since he can't defend himself, I'll admonish them equally)."

He specifically held it away from her until after they were married, which is not her fault.

@40,

Ok, so he sounds selfish, demanding, and immature. But what she wrote is still not rape.

@41,
Yeah, I can basically repeat my comment @42.

I'm not trying to hold these people up as some kind of dream marriage. Maybe they would be better off separate... But the barrage this guy is getting is really undeserved. Slap him around for being a self-centered whining ass, fine, but he doesn't sound like a criminal to me.

Maybe someone thinks the LW is Mrs. Forka.

@44,
Heh! If LW was Mrs. Forka she would have left me for any of a dozen reasons before we'd even figured out we had sexual incompatibilities to begin with.

I don't know if the guy's a rapist. He hasn't raped THIS woman, but a sexual sadist who doesn't believe in safewords who has "crossed some boundaries in the past"? I think there's good odds in betting he's at least keeping a therapist or two busy.

And even if I wouldn't call his current treatment of his wife "rape", that doesn't mean it's got much to reccommend it.

Whatever else he is, he's being an ass. if you're kinky, and a partner says that they're not sure about your kink, but they'll try to meet you halfway to start, if you're at all invested in the relationship you go ahead and do that, then. Sheesh.

I suspect the moment he shows his face at an actual BDSM event, he will get quite an education. And quite an earful.

@43 He just sounds like a potential criminal, and the majority of the commenters here are warning LW away from him because they understand the apologia woven into the subtext of the letter and because they recognize the red flags he's displaying. Her safety is more important than him growing as a person, particularly if the possibility exists that he might do so by assaulting her. The behavior she describes is setting off alarm bells for a number of readers who understand the patterns of domestic violence, rape, and abuse. Better she leave him now than after he really hurts her - after all, he's hurt her already.

I doubt a lot of people can be convinced to give this guy any consideration. He deceived his wife about his sexual needs before marrying her, then apparently the very best he can do to meet her sexual needs is to fuck her so hard he hurts her.

Ain't nobody got time for that.

My safe word is "afghanistan banana stand"

I don't know, this guy sounds to be more than a garden variety sadist- he sounds actively dangerous. The repetitive nature of his fetish, the lack of interest in vanilla, the desire to violate and transgress boundaries- he sounds pretty close to the boundary between sadist and sexual psychopath. There are a number of papers on the subject- which suggest that sexual psychpaths generally also express milder variants of their behavior at home.
Think of all the known sexual psychopaths that are in long term relationships and marriages.
I'm not into bdsm, but I can't imagine too many women would put their hands up for non consensual play with no safe words.
I think she should divorce him.

@50 I think he sounds like one of those irresponsible jerks who refuse to use condoms just because they feel like it. This: " repetitive nature of his fetish, the lack of interest in vanilla, the desire to violate and transgress boundaries" could all be normal things if the owner of these traits has sufficient self awareness, it's the complete refusal of any responsibility and self control that sounds shitty. Wouldn't let such a "sadist" anywhere near me.

" I want my sex partner to get off on getting me off. Bad match for a sadist. "
These are not mutually exclusive things. A sadist who is a normal human being will get off on getting their partner off.

@31: What she says is:

1) He wants to be able to operate in the area beyond which she would revoke consent. That in itself is what turns him on. That in itself is also the very definition of rape. It's also the definition of assault and battery.
2) He wants to be able to do it in a way in which she cannot revoke consent (i.e, no safeword) or he doesn't have to honor her revoking consent. Also rape.
3) "his tendencies had led him to cross some lines in past relationships." I read that as he has pushed past boundaries, which is to say he operated in the area beyond where consent had been given. In other words, he raped his previous girlfriends.

Sorry, but yes, that is rape. All of the above is rape. If I say you have consent to go this far and no farther, and you go farther, that is criminal. Consent is everything.

Chances are pretty fucking good that's what ended the relationships, too. He should count himself lucky that none of them decided to press charges. (Chances are good there too, that the reason they didn't is because they didn't think the law would take seriously a rape charge rooted in a BDSM scene.) One would think he would learn from being dumped for abusing his partners, but his response is to keep looking for some way to get away with it with someone new. Sure sounds like a psychopath to me.

@49: Is that because it's so easy to say with a ball gag in your mouth?

"Aaaghaahaa a-aa-a ahhhn"

@47 FTW. Thanks for summarizing what so many of us where picking up on. Simply interpreting her word choice and phrasing is quite enough to tell her to DTMFA; if anything this comment thread is less speculative than most.

Fucking Christ. I wouldn't want to be left alone in a room with a self-proclaimed sadist who doesn't believe in safewords, let alone remain married to one.

@52: "One would think he would learn from being dumped..." oh, he did. He learned not to tell her until a year after the marriage.

LW : You love your husband. Your husband doesn't love you. But ! He really really wants to stay married to you because he needs someone to abuse (= hurt without safewords) and you're the one he has succeded in deceiving into it, after several failed attempts. He won't hurt you more than you allow, because then you'll walk.

And you're already allowing being deprived of sexual pleasure for years already, without safeword, and being cervix-pounded without safeword. That's some hurting he obviously didn't do before disclosing he was, not a honest naive sadist, but an abuser-in-willing - I guess you didn't knowingly marry into bad sex ?

He doesn't love you, you're just a convenient at-home victim for his need to make someone around him miserable. Love doesn't hurt ! (though I grant it may consensually physically hurt, with a safeword).

PLEASE NO KIDS WITH HIM.

The only reason he's not hurting you more is because you can tell and you can leave.

Babies can't.

He'll be alone with the baby sometimes.

Wanna have a sickly, grouchy baby, always crying, with unexplained illnesses ? Until you get it to the hospital, and find out there are broken healed bones of all ages, or it's been shaken and it's mostly brain dead now ?

DON'T HAVE KIDS WITH A SELF-PROCLAIMED ABUSER-IN-WAITING.

And remember : trust him to his word as to what he is. He is someone who's willing to admit he likes to inflict pain on others without consent. Even if you divorce after becoming a mother, he'll have a highway at getting back at you by torturing the child. And until he really does it, you'll never be able to prevent him from having unsupervised visits with the child. You want to live that kind of hell, not knowing whether you'll see your child again whenever it goes with its father ?

She says he "wants more information and doesn't know where to get it." Well, SHE knew to where to start. Dan should put up somewhere a page with books he recommends and include a link to it at the bottom of all his columns.

Agreed 46. What gets me is that the LW was game for his kink but he was the one who balked when she wanted to take some sane and reasonable precautions. Also I roll my eyes at him not being able to find any info on sexual sadism because no one has made a website or written about book about this topic ever. It certainly couldn't be him looking for a way to bully his wife into do what he wants.

Oh god. Sorry LW. If it was just that he'd pouted and not been willing to look into safe, consensual BDSM, that would just be common or garden asshattery. It would have pointed to counselling, therapy and perhaps monogamishness with a full on education from the BDSM community.

But after all that discussion and GGGness from you, he's still violating your sexual boundaries - don't like pain; gonna pound your cervix anyway. Adding the spectacularly awful disclosure fail and the horribly worrying admission about previous relationships, he does not sound like a safe person to be around.

@61 - at least, unless he does some very smart work on himself very quickly indeed.

And about feeling emotionally crappy after he hurts you - that's a standard part of BDSM and what 'aftercare' is all about. When someone has hurt somebody with their full consent, that is. How about feeling crappy because he's failed to take responsibility for being a good and safe sex partner?

@46: Exactly. I don't know why Forka's so obsessed with that. The point is that if this continues as the husband wishes, he's going to ~be~ in jail, either from his wife or some malformed Craigslist encounter.

And if getting in the way of this gives him "the sads" and he's somehow forced to treat his wife like a non-participating fuckdoll as a "compromise", get the fuck away ASAP.

"Dear Dan, my awesome husband's kinks are a little too much for me. Any advice? Sincerely, Hopeful."

Slogetariat: "You're fucked, lady."
"Guy's an asshole."
"Suuuper asshole."
"Not just an asshole, a rapist."
"Not just a rapist, probably a psychopath."
"Totally psycho."
"Psycho sadist. Bet he's killed someone."
"Bet he's killed lots of people."
"Guy's a serial killer lady, get the fuck out!!!"

Actually LateBloomer it's more 'my awesome husband has a kink I'm not crazy about but was willing to try as long as we took some safety precautions. This didn't work for him and because he needs to be able cause real damage and not have to take responsibility for it in order to get off. Also he's been passive aggressive punishing me for not complying via shitty painful sex' Plus he acts like this common kink is something he can't research..

@66: He seems like a communist to me. I'm also picking up an arsonist vibe. I hate to throw words like "terrorism" around, bud do you think?

I wouldn't touch this guy, but there are many women who want to be pushed beyond what they can consent to in the moment. It's called "consensual non-consent," and many people enjoy it. The safeguard is trusting that the sadist (someone you know well) wants you to play with him/her again in the future. So they hurt you beyond your momentary limit, but give you just what you signed up in the long run.

Obviously, that doesn't get him out of exercising control so that he doesn't accidentally hit you in the eye or something. But a spanking scene can easily go beyond the bottom's momentary consent without any risk of damaging anything, or any trauma if the bottom relished the idea of, and agreed to, such a scene.

I was waiting for seandr to show up...

Look... I'm not saying this guy's a prize, but a rapist? You have to actually rape to be a rapist, not just want to rape. A rape fantasy does not = rape.

I'd really like to know these people's ages... my guess? 19. Young, dumb, and full of cum. But of course, all we know is what wifey wrote in.

"Consensual non-consent", "implied consent" and all the variants are somewhat more helpful because at some point I'm sure people have been in an encounter where they deliberately or accidently were mutually carried away with their partner in the moment. So to somehow criminalize that after the fact would be confusing from a logical standpoint. That's only somewhat related to the LW's situation, but I thought I'd throw it out there after 71's rude comment.

Back to the LW; Obviously she isn't scared of him and he isn't a rapist because they've been living together and having crappy but consensual sex together for five years without her ending up in a shelter, a body bag or on the phone dialing the cops after finding a sex slave.

As to whether he's doing S&M I can honestly say I have no idea, but the comment thread has just gone so far beyond any kind of logical response. He might be a jerk or any number of things, but clearly his partner values him and their relationship enough to try and save it. So let's put away the rapist who shakes babies, yes? I'm sure they enjoyed Thanksgiving after reading that bullshit.

@69: That's all very nice for a person who specifically wants to be dominated without recourse to a safeword. It's completely non-applicable to LW, though. She wants a safeword, he thinks it will spoil his fun to have to exercise self-control. Clearly it spoils his fun to hold back now, because he's taking it out on her cervix.

@70: "You have to actually rape to be a rapist, not just want to rape."

See letter. "...his tendencies had led him to cross some lines in past relationships." Those are some very careful and pretty words to describe a person who did things to someone who didn't want them done to her. Several different someones, in fact. So, yes, he IS a rapist. If not literal rape, at very least sexual assault. He has a history of it. He also likes it so much he doesn't want to stop in the future.

@72: Lots of people "value" partners who beat them for perceived infractions like getting dinner on the table late, or spending the grocery money wrong, or just being in the wrong place when he comes home drunk. They aren't necessarily "scared" of said partner most the time that they stay with them and put up with the abuse. I'm not saying he is doing any of that, but I don't see what your comment has to do with whether what he _is_ doing is wrong.

For what it's worth I hope that the posters here are wrong. That I'm wrong. That maybe this guy isn't abusive or dangerous, just selfish and naive and that he and the LW can work things out.

At the same time a lot of people have been hurt in 'wonderful' relationships. That sometimes we miss the warning signs. And I think that most of the posters just want the LW to be safe.

70: Let me explain this whole "rape" rationale to you.

What exactly do you think a safe word is? Do you think it's just something fun to shout out at random during kinky sex? The entire point of a safe word is to allow a sub to communicate when they actually want to stop something. In other words, its one and only purpose is to allow people to communicate what their partner does and does not have their actual consent to do, regardless of whatever fantasy scenario they're engaging in. Sure, people can rape with and without safe words, but a safe word eliminates any confusion about whether or not one's resistance is just part of the act. This stops people from being able to feign ignorance if they violate actual consent during any sort of fantasy scenario.

So now that you know the purpose of a safe word, use your logical thinking skills and tell me what therefore follows when someone has requested not to have one during their BDSM play. Essentially, he has requested that she do away with her ability to communicate when her consent is withdrawn. Now let's take that logic a step further: under what circumstance would this make a difference? In what scenario would he benefit from her lacking a safe word? What would a safe word stop him from doing?

That's right: it only makes a difference in whether or not he can continue doing something without her consent and later claim to have thought it was just part of the act. That's the only thing a safe word interferes with, and the ability to do this is so vital to him that he won't even bother with BDSM unless the safe word is done away with.

Unless you have another term to describe sexual activity being done to somebody without their consent, the word "rape" is the best descriptor we have of that scenario. If you think that one has to be a rape-paranoid misandrist to describe it as such, then that says more about you than it does about typical sloggers.

The closest anyone comes to accusing him of having raped already is when they remark on his having "crossed some lines in past relationships." Granted, I don't think a jury should convict the guy based on some offhand word choice, but given that the entire context here stems from this guy's desire to operate outside of his partners' consent, it's not that crazy to get suspicious when interpreting statements about how he has "crossed some lines" in that arena.

So to recap:

-- No, nothing in the letter suggests that he's raped his wife already.

-- Yes, the scenario he's pushing for would be rape (rape fantasy, unlike real rape, usually involves safe words or some other means of allowing the sub to, you know, actually stop things when they genuinely want to).

-- No, it's not definite that he's raped anyone in the past. However, since we can all agree that context is important (right?), it's disingenuous to imply that this interpretation of his past "boundary-crossing" is purely random.

-- No, Sloggers don't believe that every man is a rapist. They just believe that every man becomes a rapist if and when he engages in (or continues!) sexual activity without the other person's consent. If you disagree with this, feel free to explain why.

Let's back way the fuck up. This is where we need to start:

My husband is coming to accept his sadism, but wants more information and doesn't know where to get it.

This is the internet age. Any bit of information you want is a google search away. Tons of it. Even if it's just a search for print books. There is absolutely no excuse, none, at all, in any shape or form, that this guy should be ignorant of anything relating to BDSM.

Unless he has deliberately chosen to be so. He is not interested in getting "more information." He is interested in having his sexual needs met w/o having to do anything at all. I have no idea what other sorts of 'charms' this man has, but IMHO he doesn't deserve normal sex, let alone hot kinky sex.

@76 Exactly, he's just a lazy ass jerk. I wouldn't go so far as to call him a rapist.

There's a difference between boring, unenthusiastic vanilla sex, and "vanilla" sex in which she services him, then he hurts her, but not nearly as much as he wants to, so they both feel crappy afterward. If he were pulling off the former, I'd have somewhat more faith that he had enough discipline to work on this successfully.

Pure speculation: many of us have noted how unbelievable it is that he can't figure out how one might go about researching sexual sadism. So maybe he isn't a stranger to BDSM and its rules: maybe he was briefly in a community and got blacklisted. It would explain how he just happened to hit right on bedrock rules of BDSM--safeword, respect for boundaries--as the things that coincidentally don't allow him to engage in any low-level experimentation with his wife. They need to go with "vanilla" sex in which he always happens to hurt her, knowing she hates being hurt and feels violated.

I agree with Avast and Bonefish re assault. What exactly is the prettily-worded "his tendencies had led him to cross some lines in past relationships" supposed to mean that's innocuous, especially for a sadist who doesn't like boundaries? His girlfriends didn't want to hold hands with him, but he ignored that, held their hands, when they asked him to stop he wouldn't, when they tried to pull away he squeezed until it hurt and until they were scared, then he let go and felt really bad about the boundary-violating handholding?

That crossed a line into assault there, even if not of a form they would be inclined to call the police over. Just as they probably wouldn't call the police over sex that started consensual and turned into a scary pain experiment. Instead they broke up with him.

Since he wasn't honest with LW about the sadism for more than a year, I don't think these were BDSM dungeon scenarios that got out of hand. I think it was regular old sex with regular old vanilla girlfriends in which he wasn't able to override his need for pain and violation, which, yeah, is going to read as assault, even if not assault you would call the cops over.

For some reason comment #80 is in the gray. I'm reposting it because I think that it is the most reasonable response to this letter and Dan's answer to it.

I don't know the etiquette of munches at all, so please forgive me if this is not allowed; I think that *she* should attend some as well, if vanilla partners are allowed to attend. This way she can learn how to draw boundaries and what the standard safety practices are above and beyond the basics that she obviously knows already. I understand the BDSM community would not want simple voyeurs, but the GGG partner of a member seems to me to be a legitimate part of the community. She can also use them as sounding boards to figure out if this guy is dangerous to her or not, as I would expect them to be better able to distinguish between dangerous and utterly ignorant than people on the net, if only because they'd meet him in person.

LW doesn't want a divorce, she also hasn't been able to communicate that he is indeed crossing her line (no cervix pounding, that hurts, is a line she wants drawn). He may be dangerous or he may be stupid or communication lines may be so far down they're in the Marianas trench. To find out, I suggest that she insist on no penetrative sex for a while. Blowjobs and other non-penetrative options for him; oral, fingers, toys for her (any dildos she controls, not him). Find out if he can enjoy sex that includes no pain, and substantial pleasure for her. Find out if he can fit into the BDSM community. If those answers are yes then Dan's suggestion may work. If only the second is true, then they can have a companiate marriage with both having sex partners outside the marriage. If the first part is true and the second false, I would suggest leaving; without an outlet for his kink, she could be in danger.

Posted by Thanksforyourpatience

Does anyone else worry that this guy is a potential criminal? If he doesn't want to "limit" himself, he sounds like the serial rapists and murderers we hear about on crime documentaries...

@72: Where yours and EricaP's breaks down is that-

""Consensual non-consent", "implied consent" and all the variants are somewhat more helpful because at some point I'm sure people have been in an encounter where they deliberately or accidently were mutually carried away with their partner in the moment."
...
"there are many women who want to be pushed beyond what they can consent to in the moment. It's called "consensual non-consent," and many people enjoy it. The safeguard is trusting that the sadist (someone you know well) wants you to play with him/her again in the future. So they hurt you beyond your momentary limit, but give you just what you signed up in the long run."

This is the default state of his needs,and he apparently requires that there be no limits put in play. Pretending that there are actual situations where there are "no limits" enables abuse. The trick, I imagine, is setting your own limits based on the play/lifestyle partner's ACTUAL LIMITS and not needing to communicate them. Suggesting that they don't actually exist and that there is no need for silent communication and interplay between partners, that's irresponsible and shitty.

Agreed with the other posters that state that his dancing around "not understanding" the basics of S&M may likely be him having attempted to participate in his local scene and getting blackballed for malbehavior towards his partners. This is an issue of will, not laziness.

@81: "she also hasn't been able to communicate that he is indeed crossing her line (no cervix pounding, that hurts, is a line she wants drawn)."

From the letter, she's discussed it with him and anything other than giving in equates to "crappy sex" because she wants him to be sexually happy and he intentionally gives her bad sex because he's restraining his "needs" or some shit. She's actually communicated her needs, but they are incompatible, his are exclusionary.

@82, you're late to the party. @65 already suggested he might be a serial killer. Best armchair diagnosis ever.

@avast2000: Yes, it really is that simple.

Only for those who like to oversimplify things.

This reads to me like just another couple who love each other but are struggling with sexual incompatibility. Even though his fetish is extreme, there are varsity level female fetishists out there who get off on rape scenarios, ambiguities in a scene, the thrill of not knowing what might happen next.

And obviously, there are plenty of men out there with whom she could enjoy relatively mainstream sex. It's a little puzzling to me why this guy can't throw his wife a vanilla bone every now and then, but I don't know what it's like to have his fetish, and the fact that she doesn't want to leave him after years of this tells me he the reason isn't as simple as "he's an abusive psychopath."

In any case, I don't see any happiness here without bringing other sexual partners into the mix.

@86: "Even though his fetish is extreme, there are varsity level female fetishists out there who get off on rape scenarios, ambiguities in a scene, the thrill of not knowing what might happen next. "

I guess the questions are:

Are these women honestly lacking in limits, or are they putting forth the IMPRESSION of that? (Play is play, after all.)

If they truly have no limits and no active or even silent power negotiations how might that potentially affect the couple's marriage? Seems like a bit of a problematic crowd to associate with. He's not going to roll with the varsity levels.

I'm confused about the cervix pounding. In my experience, that's not something a guy does on purpose. It's just the way their bodies fit / don't fit together. And various positions can help, but not every couple finds positions that make both people happy.

But if they don't find a mutually good position, people don't usually get married. So when did the cervix pounding start? Before the wedding? Or somehow after she refused his extreme kink?

@undead ayn rand: Are these women honestly lacking in limits

I can only speculate.

However, I can imagine women who's limits fall outside the range the sadist himself is willing to go, in which case they can "safely" play without explicitly defined scenarios, rules, and safe words. I can also imagine both men and women for whom exceeding those limits is part of the fun, kind of like athletes who get a rush from pushing themselves further than they've gone before.

I'm not really a fetishist, yet mutual limit testing (wherever those limits happen to be) with a willing and trusted partner actually sounds like a lot of fun to me, with the potential to generate intense intimacy around those shared experiences and adventures. I guess there's also potential for bad experiences, as well.

86: I've already explained the difference between rape fantasy and rape. Hint: it often hinges around the ability of both parties (not just one) to stop everything if they genuinely want to.

Also, the existence of people who enjoy the thrill of not knowing what will happen next has little to do with this scenario for two reasons:

1) There's a difference between "not knowing what will happen next" and "not being able to stop the scene under any circumstances." Those who enjoy the latter are much rarer than those who enjoy the former. And rarer still are those who actually enjoy being unable to stop the scene in practice as much as they enjoy it in theory. After all, it only becomes relevant in scenarios where you really want to stop the scene.

You can have a means of putting a stop to things and still enjoy having all kinds of unpredictable things happen. If you're so extreme that nothing is too intense for you, then great: you'd just never end up actually using your safe word. It's there for when you really, REALLY want to put a stop to things. It's not a matter of how "extreme" a person's fetish is; that only affects the point at which their safe word would become useful.

2) The LW is not one of those people anyway. She doesn't want her boundaries crossed. She's perfectly willing to engage in BDSM, but she wants a safe word. This is such a reasonable compromise that it feels wonky even referring to it as a "compromise," given that safe words are pretty standard for even some of the most seasoned, extreme BDSM enthusiasts. And yet he's pouting, because to him it doesn't matter whether or not he sticks to things that are OK with his sexual partner.

If he just had desires that were too extreme for her, I'd be all for them staying together and bringing other people into the mix. But his passive-aggressive cervix pounding, combined with the fact that this all centers around his desire to receive plausible deniability for "going beyond" what he has his partners' consent to do, tells me that this isn't just some poor frustrated kinkster who would never really hurt someone.

He's a shitheel who needs to be avoided unless and until he learns that consent isn't just an inconvenient cock-block.

Followup on 89:

Limit testing is fine. But again, doing so relies entirely on everyone's ability to put a stop to things once that limit has been identified and stretched however far everyone is willing to go.

Removing that ability doesn't allow you to test limits. If anything, it makes that boundary a lot less clear to identify while enhancing the potential to traumatize people in the process.

So again, none of this justifies anyone trying to browbeat people into hesitatingly going without their desired safe words for the sake of a marriage.

Re 86, he's never going to attract the interest of a varsity-level female masochist if he refuses to bother with any of that baseline 'respect partner's boundaries' starter league stuff.

Re 88, it's unclear but sounds like they had good vanilla sex she enjoyed up until he brought up the sadist thing, she asked for careful exploration and he turned her down, and after that the sex became all focused on him receiving blow jobs and then "trying" not to hurt her and only doing it a little bit.

It's possible it was always crappy and painful and she thought it would get better with time? I think that would have included some sort of "and then I understood why sex had always been the way it was" line. Sounds more like it gradually became blow-job-to-cervix-pound, not that it started that way.

@86[ and the fact that she doesn't want to leave him after years of this tells me he the reason isn't as simple as "he's an abusive psychopath."]

People stay in shitty, abusive, relationships for all sorts of reasons. That she hasn't divorced him yet doesn't mean he's good partner.

And after rereading I'll point out that her husband is making her feel guilty for having self-preservation instincts, and seems to be dumping all responsibility for fulling his fetish on her, which makes think there may be some mental and emotional fuckery in this relationship.

@93: Her husband is making her feel guilty for having self-preservation instincts, and seems to be dumping all responsibility for fulling his fetish on her.

One thing that bothers me with the cervix pounding, beyond the obvious: it's like they're having compromise sex where he gets to set out both the dichotomy and the middle ground. So it's not "she wants a caring engaged lover who enjoys her pleasure, he wants extreme sadistic kink, the compromise is unenthusiastic vanilla neither really enjoys" but "she wants not to be hurt, he wants to hurt, so he hurts her but less than he wants to."

If it was the first (and he was willing to follow BDSM 1.0, which he claims is out of the question), I'd say this might be a case where opening the marriage helped. But he's framed it so he's "trying" (by not hurting her as much as he wants to) but she isn't trying (because she won't give him permission for the no safe-word, destroy-all-her-boundaries sex he wants).

@90, >>There's a difference between "not knowing what will happen next" and "not being able to stop the scene under any circumstances." Those who enjoy the latter are much rarer than those who enjoy the former. And rarer still are those who actually enjoy being unable to stop the scene in practice as much as they enjoy it in theory. After all, it only becomes relevant in scenarios where you really want to stop the scene. >>

I think you're wrong about how many bottoms relish scenes where they desperately want it to end as it's happening, but are happy later that the dom kept going.

Some of my favorite, hottest memories are of scenes where I was gagged and told I had no safeword. I hated the pain in the moment, and won't agree to such a scene again because I'm protective of the me-during-the-scene. But I'm glad I did those scenes, and grateful to the tops who took me so deep. Most tops are too squeamish for such scenes. Those who have that darkness within are highly valued by aficionados of consensual-non-consent.

To 95, there's definitely room for that sort of thing in the world... among people who know what they're doing, trust eachother, know where the boundaries are in the first place (so they have a way to gauge how far to go past) and understand what they're doing to their partner anatomically.

Which doesn't sound like that guy.

@95: How do you tell the difference between someone who knows what they're doing and respects you from a true Sadist? At what point would you not excuse the actions of someone who refuses a person any safeword out of inconvenience?

@97, I know true sadists who respect their partner(s). If the top refuses to play with a safeword, the bottom can walk away. (Assuming the bottom isn't craving that no-safeword scene.)

Convenience isn't the issue, it's about cravings.

I know someone who accidentally had their arm broken during (consensual) rough play, and their partner didn't realize it had happened and certainly didn't intend for it to happen. Luckily they had a safeword ("ow ow stop right now I mean it" was a regular part of their play.) It's possible 'no safeword' is safe with a very experienced top, but with someone who claims to have no knowledge of how BDSM works? He is asking her to risk permanent damage for his sexual pleasure.

While I can understand the thrill and release involved in a bottom knowing she has no safeword, I think that needs to only happen when it's primarily for the bottom's sake, and it needs to be taken seriously. I can't imagine a situation where it's okay to say "you need to risk serious injury because that's what gets me off."

@73 I was just requesting that the overall theatrical tone of the conversation be dialed down a bit. I fully admit that since I don't know the LW or her husband personally I can hardly say what he is. And as I don't know anything about S&M this doesn't leave me with much to contribute to the conversation; which is why I haven't.

@83 I'm not suggesting that they don't exist. I'm only agreeing that from a logical standpoint these limits could be suspended in an isolated moment of time with a partner, but could exist with that same partner or a preceding partner at a different point in time. I should have made it clearer that I was only agreeing that this was a very real possibility in general, not that this was my actual working hypothesis for the LW's situation. The LW's situation is just somewhat related to this concept in that it's been brought that the LW's husband's desires are not capable of being realized in a healthy situation in real life, which was what I felt EricaP was addressing in comment 69. I only wanted to add some support and call 71 a rude ass.

Yikes. The amount of bias (and lack of empathy) one would need to read this letter and conclude that the guy is "clearly" a rapist is terrifying to me.

This should go without saying, but there are a million ways to cross boundaries that fall well short of rape, even for sexual sadists. I've had partners that crossed some boundaries, but none of them have ever raped me. All rape involves crossing boundaries, but not all crossing of boundaries must involve rape.

Is this guy a monster, a more pedestrian jerk, or a good guy who is merely clueless & confused? All are possible, of course, but the letter points us to the clueless & confused conclusion. Despite all these labored efforts to divine coded messages from the LW's phrasing, nothing in her account gives decisive reason to doubt her characterization of her husband.

Also, is it really that uncommon for someone to initially struggle with how to be able to realize a fetish because there's no way to make it "real", before figuring out how to do it through play/fantasy? I know it was reading Dan years ago that introduced me to this concept in my own life, there's certainly whole swaths of America where you won't find anyone else popularizing it. Nor is it so uncommon to feel shame over a sexual interest and have that shut down your attempts to explore it.

And to everyone saying: since there's so much information about how BDSM works out on the internet, he must be a rapist if he hasn't figured that out yet -- there is also a ton of MISinformation about BDSM on the internet, maybe he found himself in the wrong online world. Or just getting false ideas from his porn. Or maybe he concluded that he particularly is programmed to need this complete control and thus there was no point to exploring an organized scene.

The point being: there are just as many benign explanations for how the husband might have found himself in this situation as there are negative ones.