Comments

1
The leather fuzzy cuffs available at Babeland and other fine retailers are top tier and should be pretty non-threatening yet effective.
2
What's MILF?
3
I still can't fathom how someone can claim to be "happily married" when their partner appears to have no interest in their happiness or satisfaction. If I found that there was something I desperately needed from my relationship, I wouldn't want to go outside of the relationship for it -- isn't that what I'm in a relationship for? To explore those things with this other person that I've invested so much in? Life is too short to waste it with people who don't give a shit about your needs, DUD.
4
Give me a call, DUD. I'll take care of you. And then some.

But there is that nagging issue with the hubby. Oh well.
5
@2, Man In Late Flower.
6
What Stirwise said at @3. She's being driven to tears and her husband seems not to care -- how is this "happily married"?

To Crone @2: have you heard of Urban Dictionary?
7
So many of these writers' problems can be solved by the directions given to four-year-olds: "Use your words." And interestingly, they all claim to have great relationships "except...."

Hello! Talk to the man. If your relationship is that great, it can stand some very direct, open, honest conversation!
8
@5 Modern Influx of Late Flowerers
Most influential latte flavors. My important latina fans.
@6: No. Well, I guess now I have.
9
@5 I love this game:
Military-In-Latex Fetish.
Man Into Lubricated Fisting.
Metallic Intrusive Libido Follower.
Madrid Institute of Luscious Fedoras.
Master Inhibitor of Living Free. (perhaps a Romney nickname).

Or, 2, you could just GIY.
10
Hey lady, your partner is admired and respected by all? By ALL? Really? Guess what, I don't know your partner, I don't respect your partner, and you need to learn that words actually mean things.
11
@2-MothersI'dLiketoFuck- MILF. Despite Gloomy's amusing effort.
12
Are you guys for real? "Not interested in BDSM" is NOT the same thing as "hav[ing] no interest in their happiness or satisfaction". You might equally say that the fact that she's "dead" to every form of sex that her husband enjoys is equivalent to her having no interest in his happiness or satisfaction. Especially since she's about to insist on unilaterally changing the rules of their marriage. There's nothing wrong with him just because he's a vanilla guy who entered into a relationship with someone whom he thought was a vanilla woman.

They've become, if they weren't already, sexually incompatible. So they need to talk, and maybe the best solution will be for them to break up, or maybe they can work something else out. Either way, there's nothing gained by demonizing him.
13
Waaaait a minute.

"Never mind that I don't ever have the chance to express myself in ways that I once did. Yesterday I was almost in tears thinking about how this part of me has died."

This isn't a fetish that she's discovered she has. This sounds like something she *used* to do, but has stopped. What's changed?
14
@12: If there was something I needed every single day to feel satisfied, and had to go out looking for that thing elsewhere because my spouse wasn't providing it, I would call that pretty fucking insensitive on my spouse's part. There are plenty of things Mr. Stirwise enjoys that I do not, but I don't withhold them from him because I'm not interested. "Not interested" is a pretty shitty excuse for depriving someone of something they clearly feel they need to be happy, satisfied and fulfilled sexually. She said herself that she's "very, very sad." She said her only "sex life" is a daily visit to a bondage site. A spouse that doesn't see this as a problem is not a spouse who cares about his partner's well-being and happiness.
15
It also sounds to me like they aren't having sex AT ALL. The wording of her letter is kind of unclear.

But I'm with the earlier writer. TALK TO HIM. Lay it out, tell him your needs aren't being met. Be clear and firm and loving. If you're truly "happily married" then you should come out on the other side a better couple.
16
I had a similar situation with an ex a few years ago. I'm vanilla and she really wanted to be tied up. I tried to be GGG about it and we experimented with cuffs and even some simple tying, but I found that although I enjoyed her getting off, it was a major turn off for me because it conjured up thoughts of rape during sex. We talked about it like grownups and we opened our relationship. She went to bondage parties and I would still enjoy vanilla sex at home. Communication shouldn't be hard if the two really love each other.
17
Don't just talk to him, show him. Buy those handcuffs, and take them out next time you have sex. Put one on your own wrist, and make him put the second one on.

I know this isn't damn near as hot as having him hold you down and put them on himself, but work with him to get to that point. Often people will drop hints that they want their partner to do something, when what their partner really needs is more of a push.
18
We don't have the whole picture, obviously, but why do I have this notion that this poor woman is going to wind up dead? Some scenario goes wrong, perhaps. This letter is creepy.
19
I'm almost inclined to take her calling herself "happily married" as a weird sort of Freudian slip. I'm getting faint vibes that she's really the drop-hints-and-he'd-better-read-her-mind type, but that's a side issue. The missing tail end of the advice is that she has to be ready to back up the ultimatum with leaving and being cast as the bad one when he just rolls his eyes and doesn't take either of her choices.
20
@15 "The wording of her letter is kind of unclear."

Yep. My best guess is that she married someone older and stable, after she thought she was done sowing her wild oats. She's not done. She is scared to be really explicit about her needs, because her husband never knew about them, and she thinks he'll leave her and she'll have to raise the rugrats with just child support and no husband.

"I can't cheat but I would be lying if I said I didn't think about it."

She is thinking about cheating, and has someone in mind. A bad boy, probably, who has already let her know that he sees her as a MILF.
21
Giving an ultimatum is one of the most powerful things you can do for your own freedom, but you have to be strong enough to walk. I gave an ultimatum (I demanded "ten times more sex," which meant we might have sex once a month instead of once or twice a year), he refused, and I left. Am I happier? Oh God, yes.
22
Anybody want to go to the Savage Love Live thing with me? I got tickets as a present, all my friends are busy, and while I'm fine with burning the ticket 'cause it's a good cause, if anyone wants it, holla.
23
EricaP @20 probably has it right. She will cheat, eventually.

Here is my advice to you. Go out and buy the handcuffs. Pick a good night to break them out, e.g. when the kids are out of the house, or you are in a hotel room. Tease him with sexual thoughts all day. Get him super excited and hard. Before you are about to have sex, pull out the handcuffs and tell him you want him to cuff you to the bed and fuck you. Men tend to make the decision that leads to sex when they are hard.

After the sex, reinforce to him how hot he was doing that to you.

As a side note, (and with respect of course) there are a lot of Slog commenters who fail to appreciate how hard blunt honest sexual communication can be in a marriage. The idea of an ultimatum sounds good on paper, until you realize that the other side of it comes with a broken home, loss of finances, loss of societal privileges, reduced time with your children, etc. It's not like this is her college boyfriend.
24
Generally speaking, unltimatums rarely if ever lead to anything good in relationships. It's important to discuss issues and problems openly and honestly, and be clear about what you can and cannot live with in a LTR, but you shouldn't phrase it as an ultimatum. Ultimatums make people defensive, and defensive people are usually not open to communication or compromise, and ultimatums don't really leave any room for it either. Being honest about what you need doesn't have to make you sound like a needy bitch (that's how people tend to come off when giving an ultimatum).
25
@23 said almost what I was going to say, which is that if the LW is still having vanilla sex with her husband (that's not clear from the letter), here's what she can do: go buy the handcuffs she wants, put them in the nightstand, and the very next time they have sex, take the cuffs out as casually as one might reach for lube or a vibrator mid-coitus, reach back, and cuff her own damn hands to the damn headboard/behind her back/wherever. I don't think she needs to wait for his consent to do such a harmless thing to her own body. (But she should make sure she has a way to get out of the cuffs.)

Whatever she does, she has to stop waiting for her husband to figure out and acknowledge how unhappy this deprivation makes her, stop waiting for him to give permission for her to enjoy a harmless and common kink, and change something herself. NOW. DUD, either talk to him directly, or introduce some mild bondage yourself. Give yourself permission.
26
Perhaps the husband is unsure how to proceed / feels like a poser when he thinks about tieing her up. He is probably secure in his abilities when it comes to vanilla but maybe feels too far outside his comfort zone to really initiate this type of play.
DUD, does your husband know how much time you spend on Hogtied? Have you shown him the porn that turns you on? Has he expressly said that he is turned off by your needs? If his reaction is more along the lines of " how about the weather today!" I think you can get him to tie you and fuck you silly - it just might take some learning /coaching / encouragement. Not as immediately hot as a man who knows what he is doing but maybe in time he can become that guy.
27
Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

DUD's husband could be an insensitive jerk that doesn't care about his wife's pleasure, but given that the marriage is otherwise happy and he is respected by everyone, it's probably more likely that he's just a bit dense in this department and doesn't realize how much his wife wants to be tied up.

DUD says she's sexually dead - guessing her husband has realized this, and the sex thy're having isn't very enjoyable for him either. In an ideal world, her husband would think "She's not responding to this type of sex," but instead, because he's a human being, he's probably thinking "She's not responding to sex with ME." Believing this is hurtful and makes one less inclined to put themselves out there sexually.

My guess is that both parties are unhappy with their current sex life, but instead of talking about it they've entered into a "sexual cold war" with neither partner willing to take the first step and explicitly comment on what's going on. DUD should take that step. I know asking for handcuffs may not seem subtle, but it is way more subtle than buying handcuffs and saying "Put these on me and fuck the shit out of me right now." My guess is he will be THRILLED to fuck the shit out of her and see his previously "sexually dead" wife moaning in pleasure.
28
> which consisted of the missionary position

Yes, you need to confront your husband on being lame but come on, you can't be assertive in bed enough to roll over and say "if you want me, has to be doggy tonight?", or tell him you need some oral or no deal?

You don't say he's not interested in sex, just not that creative or needing variety. If he's not interested in you at all, that's a different story. Otherwise, if he wants to screw then take bull by the horn and tell him how you want it.

> I have asked for handcuffs. Nothing.

Buy your own toys, duh. Do you think your husband, who apparently doesn't know the first thing about BDSM, is going to feel comfortable shopping for the tools?

You buy the stuff, you teach him how to use it, you introduce it to the bedroom, you demand he use it (or lock yourself up).

Most here will jump on the husband but it sure sounds like she's being a passive aggressive spouse here. Ovary-up lady.

29
Wondering a few things here:

1) Letter wording is unclear on this point. The wording implies but does not explicitly say that she is engaging in regular sessions of missionary. That was the other person's situation, which she claims to also be in; however, she also claims to be "sexually dead," which, I'm sorry, is a far cry from weekly missionary. Later she says she goes to the hogtied website every day, and that's her sex life, which implies nothing else is happening, not even missionary.

Lady, if you aren't even trying to enjoy missionary -- or if you aren't having any sex at all with him -- then face it, he's not the only one being an unresponsive sex partner. It probably feels to him like he's fucking a dead fish (or fucking nothing), he probably feels anything but attractive and desirable himself (from his perspective: "So you need ropes and shit to even get going AT ALL, which says to me that you aren't turned on by _me_personally_ AT ALL"), and he probably feels pretty sexually disempowered himself.

What I'm trying to say here is that it isn't going to be as simple as buying your own set of handcuffs and demanding that he use them or else. If you can't figure out how to demonstrate some genuine desire for him -- specifically for him, separate from your enthusiasm for the hardware -- you can't very well expect him to demonstrate any enthusiasm in learning to use it on you.

2) If this is one of those relationships where Letter Writer is quite sure that issuing an ultimatum -- or for that matter issuing any sort of intent to find it elsewhere -- would summarily destroy the relationship, is it okay for this person to discreetly "do what she needs to stay sane," as Dan has put it in other cases?
30
I think @20 is about right - and @26 is right about why he's not responding. Topping is a lot of work, even if you are into it.

But, really, the BDSM is a complete red herring: if he is not meeting her needs then she will wind up cheating on or dumping him, and he's not the most wonderful husband ever if he's not trying to do this for her.
31
Clarification on 29: I in no way meant you should try to make yourself satisfied with just missionary. Go ahead and buy the cuffs, go ahead and bring them out yourself during your next encounter, show him how they work, do a little guidance, bust out your own fun. (Yes I understand that may interfere with the vibe the first time or two, but you have to start somewhere.)

What I meant was that the whole "sexually dead" thing is going to be the elephant in the room, and if not dealt with in a loving fashion, no amount of hardware will fix things.
32
@31 Don't disagree, I guess I just think positively that when people bitch the problem is never as great as they make it out to be and is solvable.

She seems to love her husband but also seems to be wanting him to 'rescue' her from sexual boredom, putting the onus on him instead of taking charge.

There is a big mental jump from straight missionary to BDSM...you don't need an education to change positions but learning how to tie knots, be dominant, etc is work. Instead of demanding "I want to be tied up" how about "I want to be tied up, here's the rope, here's how...".

There's also no mention of trying to understand what maybe his hidden fantasies are. Maybe he doesn't have them or maybe he's too intimidated/shy or just immature to say them out loud?

If he really just rejects all that then I suspect that her "happily married mom" is just BS.
33
@27: "In an ideal world, her husband would think "She's not responding to this type of sex," but instead, because he's a human being, he's probably thinking "She's not responding to sex with ME."

Just my opinion, but I think it is necessarily a combination of both. The wrong person using the right moves will still fail to be a turn-on; it easily might come across as a creepy turn-off.

It is asking a lot of a person to completely depersonalize their reaction to that situation, because again, that implies it's all about the activity, in which case the specific person counts for nothing in making the interaction work -- at which point, how is that desire, let alone love?
34
@32: I agree about "never as great as they make it out to be and is solvable," just with healthy side portion of "go in with your eyes open" and "don't forget your own contribution to the problem."
35
I should have clarified about the "ultimatum" bit earlier, because I do agree that it makes people defensive and can have disastrous consequences: I issued an ultimatum after years of direct communication, intensive counseling, and me doing everything I could possibly imagine to get him to have sex with me more than just a couple of quick times a year. None of it worked for more than a one-time sexual encounter, and then months would go by. The side effects of the divorce, rather than "a broken home, loss of finances, loss of societal privileges, reduced time with your children, etc." was closer to "a healthy home, financial freedom, much greater societal privileges, and a renewed bond with children." Not to mention LOTS more sex now that I'm divorced.
36
"She seems to love her husband but also seems to be wanting him to 'rescue' her from sexual boredom, putting the onus on him instead of taking charge."

Ba-BAM! Well done, 32.

I also cannot help but wonder if she is actually sabotaging the marriage by insisting this new-found interest is an absolute "must have". In that scenario, his lack of interest is how she rationalizes her destruction of the marriage. If he were fired up and ready to cuff her, this new kink might suddenly go away, and then his disinterest in remodeling the kitchen (or allow her to take two Mahori lovers or whatever) that demonstrates how it-(sigh)-was not mean to be.

On a slightly off topic note, I will troll a bit and say if this was a man writing in with similar gripes about unindulged kinks and unexciting sex (i.e., 95% of Savage's mail, I suspect), there would be arch comments here about whether HE earned HER interest. Is he doing the dishes, helping with the kids, giving her professional-quality massages in rose-petal-scented baths while reading from her favorite erotica and cooing her name with raptured bliss, etc., etc. Only if he is doing such activities, in this worldview, can he expect the requisite sexual cooperation from her. (I overstate for effect, of course.)

But a gal gripes about her husband's disinterest in Fifty Shades of Suburban Cliche? In that case no one cares how tired he is, or whether she is catering to his needs outside the bedroom. Just saying, guys, that whole "are you a truly attentive spouse outside the bedroom?" sauce can go on ganders and geese alike.
37
There's a whole lot of buy your own handcuffs here. Is she supposed to put them on herself? And then fuck herself silly while wearing them? It takes 2 to play that game. I think y'all are taking it a bit too literally.
38
@37: I think she is a lot more likely to get a positive reaction out of him in the moment, wearing a provocative nighty and waving them in his face, than if she nags him to go buy something kinky for her and then waits while it works its way up his to-do list (or doesn't), stewing all the while.
39
Actually, it struck me as crafty that Mr Savage tried to make this a coin toss - Heads, you do this with me; Tails, you give me permission to do this with somebody else. But I just didn't think it would work all that often. If this were my novel, he'd likely just refuse either to perform or to permit.

Mr Avast @29 part 2) - There's no evidence in the letter of any extenuating circumstances that would make separating/divorcing inhumane or logistically not doable. While not impossible, one might have expected such a circumstance, were there any such, to be given a mention in the letter.
40
Poor #2, left out of the conversation for lack of basic contemporary sexual vocabulary. MILF = Mother I'd Like to F*ck. You know, like this Desperate Housewife-ish LW (that's "letter writer"). As #6 says, go ye to urbandictionary.com for all your slang definition needs.
41
Love Dan's advice on this and all topics, but the comment crowd - you all are astounding, hilarious, so different from one another and from me, kind, mean... you have it all. I just wonder if the writers read through this and just keep doing what they are doing - thanking their lucky stars that they aren't partered with the likes of some this crowd (me included). I'll be back to read tomorrow. :)
42
@41--Welcome to SLOG!
43
Ohh! Ohh! Me! Call on me!

I can tie you up.

Sigh...I guess it's not really that simple...

Please wait...

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