Comments

1
SHIT man, you were blackout drunk
2
@1 at least, that's how I remember it.
3
@2

Wingman. Nothing happened.
4
If you tell, she is not likely to believe that you left the room after "sex was an inevitability," but before sex happened. So my advice is to tell the story now (since this woman is back in your lives), but limit it to "there was kissing between all three of us," and focus on:

A) arguably, kissing isn't the same as making out, so you thought you hadn't broken the rules, and

B) you were confused by how much you enjoyed kissing your friend (if that's true). Maybe not enough to rethink your straight identity, but enough that you weren't comfortable talking about the night with her, and

C) obviously the connection between your friend and this girl was a real connection (see, how fate intervened to bring them back together), so she can see why you excused yourself after that became apparent. If you admit that the girl wasn't into you, rather than stressing your own moral virtue in walking away from a sure thing, I think your wife is more likely to believe you.
5
Also, potential for a foursome down the line.
6
Agreeing with Ms Erica's point C.

*****

Do my cosmic vibrations tell me that Mr Savage *hopes* Wife will have a disclosure (or seventy) to make in response?
7
Stuck to the letter of the law, didn't make out with a stripper and what fetish said. Total blackout from that night, can't remember a thing. Please though, don't pretend that Now, you don't want to keep anything from your wife.
Bachelor parties are supposed to be about bad boy stuff.
8
...but no strippers. OH GOD NOT THE STRIPPERS! Guy is a saint. Much ado over nothing.
9
Bachelor party. Some messiness is inevitable, you got the fuck out before the fucking got out. In my book, you did the right thing, and stayed more or less true to your future wife. You kissed another woman...way, way down on the scale of possible bachelor party transgressions. I'm guessing any reasonable woman (and she sounds like a gamer) will see it the same way, with only a bit of irritation at your less than complete disclosure. Tell her now, get out in front of the story before it becomes a bigger deal by adding a few more weeks or months to your non-disclosure.
10
If I were your wife, I'd rather not know. Are your friend and his new squeeze teenagers, by any chance? Because if not, why the fuck wouldn't they keep their mouths shut about something so weird and pointless in front of your wife.

People are better off not sharing the more minor betrayals if they can avoid it. Ignorance really can be bliss. Especially if your friend starts bringing this woman around more, and your wife has to see her all the time. Oh my god, that would irritate the piss out of me.

My partner and I are technically monogamous, but also realistic. He knows that if something like this ever gets out of control for him, and something happens, it then becomes his job to make sure I don't find the fuck about it. If there was no risk of emotional attachment, I really don't want to know - unless of course I'm going to find out from someone else anyway. But if that happens, he's already screwed up big time.
11
Do strippers let people kiss them without being paid significantly extra to do so? I was under the impression that there was no touching unless you paid for the champagne room or some such.
Anyway, if it were me I would rather my husband kiss a (probably disinterested) stripper than some hot bar slut but then I'm clearly no expert on these things.
12
EricaP @4: With regards to point A (and this might just be me), if my boyfriend told me "I kissed the girl, I didn't make out with her.", I'd be more pissed at the Clintonian hair-splitting than the mistake itself.
13
@4
arguably, kissing isn't the same as making out

For years, I did not know what "making out" exactly meant (non-English speaker here). Then I found out (or so I thought) that "making out" == "tongue/french" kissing. Now you tell me that kissing is not the same as making out? So what the hell is making out?
14
I guess it depends on how she feels about lying. For me, you don't get to withold shit because you are too much of a coward to come clean and deal with me being mad at you. Like hey, you made a mistake, do me a solid and come clean, let me be mad you did it and then glad you're honest, forgive and move on. People in monogamish relationships including fucking other people are pretty unlikely to break up over kissing. Can't you trust her to handle this? She trusts you. But she won't if its not mutual trust and if you stop being honest.
15
@14, Yeah, I'd want to know. And I've found that if I quickly forgive small transgressions like this in my relationships (monogamish or not, this is a SMALL screw-up), the boyfriend usually feels like he can trust ME more, and is less afraid to be honest in the future. Maybe I'm naive or easily duped (lol) but it seems to work so far.
16
Registered European, I think "making out" = kissing + other stuff, but no PIV. Probably shouldn't include oral, but it could. A lot of touching.

@lolorhone, for you, I'd lean heavily on B, that he was so distracted by kissing his male friend, that he kinda forgot about the fact that he also kissed a woman that night.
17
@EricaP I always understood that "making out" implies at least that the clothes are kept on during whatever happens, but if it can include oral, even that is not necessarily true then? Or are we talking about oral with e.g. just the pants down in that case? So: making out == any erotic touching without fully disrobing and without PIV?

Man, this is complicated ....
18
EricaP@ 16: Alright, but that still seems like kind of a dodge. I guess I feel if you're going tell me about some dirt you did, don't try to manage my reaction by framing it through a lens of experimentation or arguing the semantic differences between 'kissing' and 'making out' or you'll just piss me off worse. Actually, this would not be a big deal to me at all- as long as he was forthright and excuse-free when he told me. Again, this may purely be a 'me' thing.
19
Registered European @17: As far as I've ever heard, 'kissing' and 'making out' are the same thing along a continuum, meaning what separates them is degree of intensity rather than activity. If a kiss is 1-5 on a scale of ten, a make-out session is 6-10. In terms of PDA, a kiss is "Awww..." a make-out is "Ewww...". I hope that was helpful. :)
20
Making out means touching each other's body parts plus kissing, as I understand it. On the way to sex.
LW, what karma, Eh?
Can only hope your friend and the woman finish up quick.
21
Surely being monogamish involves a little blurring around the edges, by the very nature of the word? My husband and I have a similar agreement, but if an occasional (and safe) opportunity arose for him that didn't involve permission, I'd be glad he was having fun.

Anyway, all bets are off for a bachelor party - if I, as a monogamish fiancée, had just said don't kiss the stripper, I'd expect anything and everything else to be a possibility. If the wife is like me and likes all the juicy details, I'd tell her using Dan's advice. If she's actually rather jealous/insecure, I'd keep the secret and, if it were later revealed, say I hadn't thought it worth sharing as it was so minor in the context of bachelor parties.
22
Well spotted, Mr Rhone - highly Clintonian.

And well Julified by Ms Erica.
23
LLH @19 & LG @20 -- That makes sense! Thanks.
24
I don't think making out needs to include other body parts. It seems like it just needs to include mouth-on-mouth kissing, or at least mouth on face. Or maybe just both (or all, if more than two) partners kissing something of someone else's. All making out would involve kissing, but not all kissing is making out. Just kissing is typically an expression of affection, whereas making out is an expression of lust. So you kiss kids, or you kiss your parents and siblings, or you kiss a kid's injury after you put bandage on it, and you're not making out. You could also kiss an object, like a book or a religious symbol or the Blarney Stone, and it's not making out. With a romantic partner, you could kiss them good morning or good night, or in greeting or departure, or when you are getting married, and it's not making out.

The practice of taking someone's hand and kissing it (typically a man taking a woman's hand) isn't making out, though I suppose if for some reason each is unable or unwilling to do mouth-to-mouth kissing but they're sucking and licking each other's fingers, someone might think of it as making out.

Even romantic kissing isn't necessarily making out. I think the difference is whether or not the kissing is something that would get people to start thinking the partners need to get a room if it's done in public view. So even a lingering romantic kiss at a restaurant or a picnic isn't necessarily making out, at least not until it goes past a certain point, while a kiss between the marrying couple at the altar might be considered making out if it starts to go too long, even if only lips are involved, but not other body parts.

I'm not sure how this applies in situations where kissing is done professionally. If it's between client and sex worker, then the whole point of kissing, if it's allowed, might well be to express lust and passion. If you're an actor doing a makeout scene or a sex sceen, I suppose it might casually be called making out. (Sofia Coppola told David Letterman that her task in The Godfather 3 was to make out with Andy Garcia in front of her dad.) But I suppose there it could be whether or not the actors go beyond professional behavior.

Anyway, this is probably more than anyone needed to think about.
25
Given this entirely reasonable request, I felt like making out with someone from the real world was several orders of magnitude worse than making out with a stripper."

This is a really weird sentence.
26
Also, tell your wife.
27
@4: A) If someone said "We kissed, but we didn't make out," and the "kissing" was so intense that sex was an "inevitability," then that someone is in fact a Clintonesque butt-coverer and I'd want out right then and there. "Making out" means kissing passionately, as opposed to a friendly peck. "Making out," to me, is limited to mouth-on-mouth action. If someone had, say, had oral sex and described it as "making out", that would be a lie on their part.

B) I read Mr Straight's "there was kissing between all three of us" as he kissed her and friend kissed her. I don't think there is any sexuality identity crisis at play here. It was moving towards gang bang, not threesome. None of SHIT's letter suggests an attraction to the friend.
28
@21: "if I, as a monogamish fiancée, had just said don't kiss the stripper, I'd expect anything and everything else to be a possibility."

But would you expect a confession if anything and everything else DID happen? Did the future Mrs SHIT ask him if he did anything, and did SHIT say no? That's a bigger problem than SHIT unilaterally deciding that this occasion was going to be don't ask, don't tell.
29
I too generally interpret "Making out" to mean "high-intensity kissing that's clearly headed for more" (even if "more" doesn't actually happen on the same occasion). As far as I know, that's what it typically means in America--it's "just" kissing, but it's for an extended period of time and with intent.
30
Seatackled. Maybe it's a cultural difference. Making out has always meant having a pash (kiss) and a grope
to me.
Copping a feel. As the boys would
say.

Mr E: it's Too late to tell his wife. The time to tell her was just after it happened. He, didn't want to rock the boat.
So no. Not yet. Unless the other two will expose it. Do they remember? If not- then you're sweet, LW. If they do- then you got trouble.
In the latter case, the other two remember, you got to front your wife.
Just tell her straight, just give yourself a little room here. It was your Batchelor party. You were a jerk. Goes with the Occassion.
That you walked after a little kiss. Big big plus.
Jesus. You guys have a child now, that stuff is old shit that means nothing.
31
I think I have to agree with Dan on this one, though, usually, I'd say honesty is the best policy. The time to disclose it was a month or so after the wedding, in a ha-ha, "I guess I should come clean on this" kind of way. Not having told her then makes it seem like there was more to it. It sounds like to me, the guys were just caught up in booze and hormones. I am in awe that SHIT was able to pull away and get out of there before more than making out happened. Maybe his wife will agree, but I'd let it go until something further is established with that relationship. Then, yeah, he should tell her. Letter of the law, not the spirit: technically, it wasn't a stripper.
32
@21: I wouldn't expect to be told anything from a stag night/bachelor party, as long as there were no potential health consequences. In the UK all sorts of stuff is expected, and most people DADT. But yes, if he's already denied that anything happened, big trouble looms.
33
Maybe my experiences are warped by being a gay man, and I currently have few prospects of a date, much less a wedding ... but I'm inclined to think that the rules of a bachelor party should be "it stays at the bachelor party with no long-term ramifications."

That means no STDs (including pregnancy, a very expensive STD), no arrests, keep to the budget and no spending money we can't afford, no tattoos that you'll regret or mohawks the night before the wedding. (Bachelor parties should always been held a few weeks in advance, right, not the night before.)

I mean, it's a BACHELOR party, right?
34
Dunno... I've got the feeling that this will end up as a great foursome with the consequent drama after several sessions and each party returning to its bases afterwards. Both girls and boys are wiling parties, one couple is monogamish and the other started as a such, which means they all are willing and desiring more of that kind of sex.

I have no divinatory powers and pretend not to have them, but I wish to hear from them in, say... two years?

Come on, SHIT! It's 2015, for chrissake! What have we learned from Savage Love?
35
Why are men given a pass because it was "a bachelor party." That is fucking bullshit. If you are in a monogamous commitment, it stays monogamous, it being a bachelor party is not an excuse. It's all part of that boys will be boys mentality, where apparently they can get away with anything, because, penises? We do not know if it they were monogamish beforehand and regardless he broke the rules because he is suppose to ask permission first. He fucked up and then neglected to tell her despite their "honest" relationship. He should just fess up and deal with the possibility that she will be upset with him. He's lucky to have someone who is open and trusting. If his friend continues to date her, it will come out anyway.
36
I think he's taken the "keep it secret" plan as long as he can. He certainly feels like he violated the agreement, so he probably did. Fess up and get it out of the way.
37
@30: Adding a grope to "making out" makes it "fooling around," in my vocab.
38
If your description of her (and your arrangement) is accurate, LW, then you should tell her and then have a good chuckle about how the universe works.

Also, I agree with seatackled's opinion on the diff between kissing and making out, more or less.
39
As a poly lady in an open relationship, I've read a lot about various rules and agreements that some couples adopt to make both parties OK with the openness, but I have never understood the rule about having consent from the SO before making out with someone new. I want my partner to be able to enjoy himself when I'm not around. If he goes to a party and meets someone who wants to make out with him (or more), do I really want him to have to attempt to get ahold of me to ask permission first? Does the third person involved find this situation acceptable? I know that I would be annoyed by this situation if I were the one at a party with an attractive and willing stranger, frantically texting my partner instead of enjoying the evening. I don't want to be anybody's ball and chain. Have your safe, sane, and consensual evening, and then tell me about it tomorrow when you've parted ways.

If these rules work for the two of you and make you both happy, great. The fact that you've found yourself lying to your partner about breaking these rules, though, means that maybe you should consider re-negotiating the arrangement.
40
wiki: Making out is a term of American origin, dating back to at least 1949, and is used variously to refer to kissing, petting and necking, but may also refer to non-penetrative sex acts such as heavy petting. Snogging is a term with roughly the same meaning in British English.
41
@30: "Mr E: it's Too late to tell his wife. The time to tell her was just after it happened. He, didn't want to rock the boat. "

I don't think it's too late, though we'd ideally want to know the wife's opinion on this sort of thing; some people would rather be told, and some people would rather just never hear about it. But setting her up to (possibly) hear about it from someone else is an asshole move. I can't see it being a dump-worthy offense, so it's not risking their child's quality of life, it's only risking her being pissed at him for a while, which is entirely her right. He should tell her.
42
@39: I had an agreement like that with my ex. No kissing (or anything more) without talking to the partner about it. Flirting okay, exchanging contact info great, no making out without checking in first.

This led to an interesting first encounter with the woman who became my girlfriend. We met at a party, and were flirting like mad. At one point, she was sitting on my lap, and came in for a kiss. I had to duck, but when I explained why, she understood--and thought it was hot that I kept my agreements and boundaries with my partner.
43
Wouldn't this be so much easier if he was happier for his friend than he was guilty about his supporting role in their meeting?

Should he even feel guilty? One person might be. Another person might think it was a harmless lark from which his buddy benefited. The letter writer better get real straight with himself before he talks to anyone about this. Because, if it's all about guilt, that's all his wife is going to hear. Choose the better perspective.
44
@15 - Yeah, I agree. My boyfriend is learning that I have a lot of forgiveness, but very little for lying or withholding. You know, people fuck up. So do I (well, actually never in these circumstances because I can see my temptations a mile away and steer clear). But being able to be honest with your partner is super important, so I think we've gotta do our best to reward honesty. No one's gonna confess if they're met with the wrath of hell over the slightest infraction.
45
Tell her. Tell her now. You obviously have some qualms about this and so it is already affecting your relationship with your wife -- on your part, since she doesn't yet know. You *know* you are lying to her by not telling her, so tell her now and get it over with. It will be better in the long run. Keeping up a lie fundamentally changes the nature of a relationship.
46
If a woman has a girls' (name?), party before her wedding, I assume the same room is given for her to act up.
Yes Mr E, I have come to agree, better to tell her. Such bad luck, though.
47
@4: She's not likely to believe the truth, so here are some weaselly, unconvincing white lies to use instead? Seems unwise. If you're going to tell her the truth, you have to actually tell her the truth, because "ok, no, you're right, so here's what REALLY happened, this time I swear" is pretty much the kiss of death.

Tell her. People have gotten over far worse.

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