@101 Of course you wouldn't choose to play with him as a sub. But what if you were already married to him and had his children--what would you do then?

@101 Of course you wouldn't choose to play with him as a sub. But what if you were already married to him and had his children--what would you do then?

re MHIO: Sounds like the dude needs a psych evaluation and meds. That's not "acting out," that's some kind of pathological disinhibition. I doubt he can control it on his own.

Regarding lady fluids - another issue are allergy meds. You know how benadryl dries out your sinuses - same deal :-) You get me on a day where I have allergy meds, BCP, and not enough fluids and there is no way I can get going without a couple drops of lube.

I also vote that LESVP's lady friend, if she is squicked out by the lube, should just make a present of a new bottle. Its a great excuse to try something new, like going to a sex shop, if nothing else!

But MHIO's husband didn't actually do anything. Did the salesgirl come to the wife? Did he contact the neighbor? Did the co-worker come to the wife with the "dark secret?" No. All we know is what the husband told the wife. There is no corroboration at all. He "tried" to contact the neighbor. He is "going" to confess his dark secret. It's all bullshit. He's a wimpy mindfucker and she's gullible.

I've seen behaviour like MHIO before, and it has two sides.

His side : inappropriate behaviour, impulsiveness, somewhere on the autistic spectrum.

So far, so bad, but..

Her side : thoughtless, inconsiderate, judgemental.

I'll bet money that as well as his behaviour, she hasn't bothered to analyse why he's behaving that way and never discussed sexual compatibility before marriage, let alone now.

When someone says they want to wear panties and have fun made of their small cock, it is not a 'but whatever' - it's something to be discussed and understood.

Dan's advice is pretty good, but MHIO also needs to understand that when he sees that therapist she's also going to have to have a long hard unfavourable look at herself.

In case there's still a need for a solution to WET's dilemma, there are a couple products I've seen at a fabric store in PDX that might help. One is rubberized flannel and another is P.U.L.

In regards to MHIO, it sounds like she was never into his kink but went along with it in the spirit of being GGG until it became too much for her to deal with. He does need help and she should help him get it, but I'm also seeing a woman who seems to just be done with it all. If that is the case, she should just divorce him. I don't know squat about FemDom so I don't know if Marrena's suggestion would work or not but it sounds like a lot of work and MHIO doesn't sound like she's up for that.

@92: "a creeping creeper with extra creep sauce." Love it! :-D

Marrena, I think you're seeing the world through the lens of your newly-acquired FemDom glasses.
A woman whose attitude to learning about her husband's kink is "whatever," isn't going to get into caning him. She wants normalcy, not more kink.

You complained about the level of judgment on this "sex site" discussion, but you're not taking into account the attitude of the letter writer. She's trying to make the husband stop, not trying to find new creative ways to punish him and feed his kink. It seemed clear by the way she mentioned that she has children with him, that she would leave him if there weren't other issues. You are undoubtedly enjoying your newfound world--you've described yourself as a newbie dom several times--but not everyone wants to live in it, too.

Lastly, you said: "Occasionally Dan gives advice to good pedophiles, pedophiles who don't act on their urges, on how to control their kink by having lots of roleplay with young-looking sex partners, always making sure that one has a sex partner, etc. All I'm saying is to take a similar approach with this type of kink."

I seem to remember that Dan has suggested medication to lower libido for "good" pedophiles, not that they have lots of roleplay with young-looking partners. I believe it was a reader who offered that suggestion, against the advice of people who work with pedophiles, sex offenders, and others whose kinks involve non-consent (MHIO's husband's kink involves non consent). The prevalent thinking is that by encouraging substitutes that approximate the forbidden desire, it increases the desire to have the real thing. Generally chemical castration is what is recommended--which is NOT the same thing as having a man who wants to be sexually humiliated and to sexually humiliate others in the process get caned by a FemDom. That is a reward for his behavior, not a punishment. He needs neither. He needs to stop acting on the desire if it involves unwilling participants. And to do that, he needs to have the desire lessened.

I'm pretty sure it was Dan who said that about pedophiles.

There was a time when I thought FemDom was really strange and alien, certainly nothing I would ever be interested in. Now I love it. Women's sexuality is rather fluid, I was just suggesting that she give it her consideration.

@109 :) I've said all along the husband needs lots of psychiatric help, therapy, what have you.

WOW........dudes wearin panties talkin about his hamster dick......new bottles of butt lube bitch we are still in a recession......oh yea and a case of stinky mattress cum......whats tha world comin to

I'm on board with you Marrena. I think playing to this guy's kink is a shitty idea, but I think it's less shitty than any alternative.

Hey, soak it up, I do believe the guy is spoilin for a new mattress--because he thinks there's a chance you'll cave. Just the fact that you actually considered goin in halvsies says you're a doormat, and he knows it... so the fucking cheapass mannerless tightwad is taking advantage of your lack or self esteem. What a d-bag he is. Tell him no, HAIL no. Then, if you're worried he'll tell his friends, send him this column--and send it to the friends too, so he can see you outed him first.

@85 persimmon, it's not rape, but it *is* a form of sex crime. He's involving you in (what is to him) a sex act without your consent. If you still worked there, I'd suggest talking to your manager and trying to get the guy banned from the store, and/or calling the police on him.

Call me ignorant, but it seems to me that if there is any sort of punishment roleplay tied to the behavior, he will keep doing it in order to keep getting punished. She needs to find a solution that makes it clear that this isn't a game -- that it needs to stop now, stop hard, and stop permanently.

Personally, since he sees nothing wrong with it, I foresee it just going off her radar, until it surfaces again with an arrest or a harassment suit. I suspect she needs to just divorce him now.

By the way, as impossible as it seems, since it shoots out of pussy, female ejaculate HAS NO SMELL. At least MINE doesn't. I've been ejaculating for 20 years and it never ceases to amaze me that once it dries, it is absolutely undetectable.

I think MHIO already knows what she needs to do. Give therapy a try and have him understand that she *will* leave him if he doesn't stop. GGG is a two-way street. He's not respecting her boundaries or the boundaries of outsiders. Does this mean she should leash, so to speak, his sexual expression? Not necessarily, but by his actions as stated in the letter, she is being implicated when he's talking to these other women. Context, context, context! Sex is not divorced from morality* and what he's doing is wrong.

Some time ago, there was a call on the podcast where a young girl was involved in a similar situation with her boyfriend. She would humiliate or speak to him and a very negative way in front of her little sister who would then try to defend the guy as she didn't understand what was going on. I think (I be wrong about this part, as I don't remember completely) the caller wanted to know if she should explain the dynamic to her younger (and I mean young) sister. Dan's advice was of course correct, and the caller was involving her younger sibling against her will into their sex play and he told her to knock it the fuck off. I think this is somewhat similar.

*Of course, sexual morality is not about what you put in your mouth or up your butt, it has to do with how you feel about yourself, the person you're with, consent, etc.

Bah, it's not unregistered!

Marenna,

This isn't a "sex board," it's the comments section of a publicly-available website for a column that gives sex advice. There are almost as many people who disagree with Dan as people who agree with him here, including several sex-negative people who show up just to bitch about "the fag telling people to sin." But that's not why people disagree with you. They disagree because "effective" and "proper" are not always the same thing. We could end world hunger by killing everyone dying of starvation. It would be very effective, but few people would consider it proper.

There is also another reason why your advice is bad. Threatening divorce and then following through if no change occurs legally distances MHIO from her husband's actions. Making it part of a shared sex game, however, may very well make her part of it in the eyes of a court (or at least a prosecutor). "But the sex game was to prevent the behavior," you protest. I'm no legal expert, but something tells me that wouldn't fly in court. I don't think I would buy it, and it looks like most of the commenters here wouldn't either.

Marrena,

You're wrong, he's wrong, but I think I may have a solution for you:

Why don't you get all domme-gussied up and serve him his legal papers?

Then you can both get what you want.

Oh, and for shits and giggles, as a "newbie sub" myself, I find your inability to look at your own motives and projections extremely frightening, I would never play with someone with the kind of mindset you're evincing.

The wife made it clear that being a domme is just not her piece of cake. If you can't switch, you can't switch, if you can't sub, you can't sub. This woman tried domme on, and found out she can't do it.

Suggesting that to her is like me suggesting to you (for example), oh I don't know, that you get involved in a consensual nonconsent scene that you don't know your partner will spring on you, or how it will happen, with you the sub all the way. Because maybe that really fires your partner's kettle. And they love talking about it at work, in the checkout line, at the gas station, their plans for throwing a sack over your head coming home from work one day as a little "luv surprise" since you talked about it maybe once, like 6 years ago. Methinks you would balk and consider legal repercussions. I admit, I assume much, but hey, it's my hypothetical here.

While I love the idea of GGG, I think you're failing to grasp the behavioral cognitive implications of catering to this man's sickness. He would take it as permission and run with it, like a wolf with a lambchop.

I dig that dommes are all into being right and power and stuff, but if you can't recognize where your power ends and someone else's free will begins?

Hie thee back to some more top workshops at CSPC.

STAT!

You know, usually at the point when one spouse refers to the other as "fucking asshole" and "pervert" it's not time to threaten to serve divorce papers; it's time to file. What's left, lady? DTMFA.

Marrena, your assertion that MHIO ought to respond to her husband's boundary-crossing, borderline-assaultive behavior with reinforcement is at best ignorant, at worst dangerous. This man admitted to peeping at a neighbor, which is behavior that can (and likely eventually will) lead to legal action. He may find that titillating, being into humiliation and all, but he has no right to drag his family into it, not to mention all the nonconsenting coworkers/neighbors/poor girls who work at Victoria's Secret who he's already involved in his kink whether they like it or not. To assert that this behavior is merely BDSM is patently ridiculous, and reading your many comments condoning nonconsensual kink-related behavior makes me feel sorry for any poor sub who might choose to play with you. By the way, your assertion that Savage responded to the gold-star pedophile with a suggestion that he roleplay it out with a younger partner is entirely incorrect.

The whole time I read this letter I was hoping it was just fantasy.

Are you familiar with Dan at all? He has never suggested using a young-looking sex partner for pedophiles. He suggests chemical castration and oodles of therapy for pedophiles. Jesus, get your facts right at least ONCE, lady.

That was the most recent column. I've been reading Dan Savage for over a decade, he's talked about it before.

The reading comprehension level shown in this thread certainly has convinced me that not all women are superior. Ladies, brush up on your English skills please before you start making half-assed comments.

Speaking as someone who shares the fantasies of MHIO's husband, I would like to note what an ignorant, bigoted, fearful, torch-bearing mob you all are. (With one or two exceptions, like the brave Marenna.)

I agree with the essence of Dan's advice as far as it went - compelling non-consensual bystanders to be part of your scene is wrong and if MHIO's husband actually did this (more on that below) he does need a cold wake-up call and therapy wouldn't hurt.

People on this queue have gone way overboard departing from the facts of the letter and projecting their own hang-ups. All we really know is what he told his wife he had done or "wanted" to do. It strikes me as more than 50% likely that the only person forced into a scene with him is MIHO herself when he spins his bullshit to her. From her letter MHIO hardly seems at all GGG and it is very likely that her husband is just making this shit up to involve her in the role-playing she won't do - "I was naughty today mommy..."

And I am amazed at how frantic people are to pardon MIHO from any personal responsibility or introspection. When they met he was an inexperienced virgin. He was open about his fetishes and she married him thereafter. Nevertheless after being married long enough to have children (plural), she still can't bring herself to speak of his sexuality more comfortably than him being "different," and has a "whatever" attitude? This is GGG?

I'll do a little projecting myself: Is there anything AT ALL in her letter that suggests she would be OK with him seeking the consensual play partners (that Dan refers to) outside the marriage?

Don't get me wrong, I am not saying that her husband is not 100% responsible for his own actions and their consequences. And if it needs to be repeated for those posters with weak reading skills: Lack of consensual partners is no excuse for non-consensual activities. But the fact that he is responsible doesn't imply that she is the driven snow.

And how is he to find these outside of wedlock consensual partners if he is not allowed to confess his fetishes to, or proposition woman he finds attractive? I'm not talking about the Victoria's Secrets sales clerks - if that pathetic scene really played out there is just no excuse for that and he needs to leave these poor woman alone to earn their living in peace - but about the neighbor and the coworker.

It seems to be overlooked by most of you that it isn't even alleged that he said anything sexual to either one of them - just that he wanted to or hoped to someday, - but let's set that aside. What exactly is inappropriate about speaking openly about your "deep dark secret" fetish with a woman you are interested in? Or trying to proposition someone in the neighborhood who caught your eye? (And spare me the "criminal" and "stalking" bullshit. This could have been an inadvertent glimpse through open curtains for all we know.)

If MHIO wants her husband to keep his sexual interests secret from one and all, and not bother her too much with them either, then where is his outlet? If she wants him to be more selective about who to share it with (no one at work, none of the neighbors) but is willing to let him reach out for extramarital consensual partners discretely then they should have that conversation.

Nothing excuses any actual non-consensual activity MHIO's husband has caused. But nothing in all this excuses MHIO from her marital obligation to be GGG either. And nothing excuses the rest of you from going on prudish sex-negative rants.

Good grief! Give Marrena a break! As a very experienced Domme, both Pro and lifestyle, I agree with what she's saying.
It's a sensible alternative/supplement to divorce papers. The man, without a single doubt needs therapy and lots of it. He needs some controls placed upon him as well.
If his wife wants, she probably can have a husband who doesn't act out in public, who does all the housework and brings her tea in bed in the morning and a host of other pleasant things in her life.
What Marrena is suggesting is the wife try. That's it. Just try. Or pack him off to a pro. I have a twenty year relationship with a married couple in a similar situation. The husband doesn't act out in public like this dolt, but he becomes unbearable at home.
When that happens, he gets a day long reminder session with me, that his wife is as GGG as they get and he'd damned well better remember it.

Anything--absolutely anything--is OK in the realm of fantasy...and if this is just fantasy it's OK too. However, based on what the writer stated in her letter--which is the only thing any commenter has to go on--the husband is doing nonconsensual things to completely inappropriate people. Lack of experience is no excuse for an adult person to do these things--there is plenty of educational material available in this day and age. Peeking at your neighbors in reality is NOT okay. Being openly sexual with a coworker at work is NOT okay. Harrassing salesgirls at the underwear store, NOT okay. If he is just fantasizing, he needs to tell his wife in a nonsexual moment that this is the case, because letting his wife believe he is committing criminal activity and implicating her in it is also NOT okay. If you go back and read the letter, it states that he claims to have actually said these things to the coworker and the sales clerks--the neighbor he just admits to peeping at. Regardless of how GGG the wife is or is not, if he has actually done these things, it is an indicator of a serious issue. One of my lovers is a guy into erotic humiliation, forced feminization, etc...there is nothing at all inherently wrong with these scenarios, provided that all parties CONSENT to the activity. It is not the fetish/sexuality aspect of this that makes me uncomfortable, it is the lack of consent that stops me cold. If that makes me a sex-negative torch-bearer, so be it.

Good grief! Give Marrena a break! As a very experienced Domme, both Pro and lifestyle, I agree with what she's saying.
It's a sensible alternative/supplement to divorce papers. The man, without a single doubt needs therapy and lots of it. He needs some controls placed upon him as well.
If his wife wants, she probably can have a husband who doesn't act out in public, who does all the housework and brings her tea in bed in the morning and a host of other pleasant things in her life.
What Marrena is suggesting is the wife try. That's it. Just try. Or pack him off to a pro. I have a twenty year relationship with a married couple in a similar situation. The husband doesn't act out in public like this dolt, but he becomes unbearable at home.
When that happens, he gets a day long reminder session with me, that his wife is as GGG as they get and he'd damned well better remember it.

@139 Yadda yadda yadda... "Nothing excuses any actual non-consensual activity MHIO's husband has caused. But nothing in all this excuses MHIO from her marital obligation to be GGG either."

'GGG' only applies to kinks that are within reason, that the non-kinked partner can at least tolerate. MHIO *was* GGG; she doesn't really get into the whole feminization/humiliation thing, but she was willing to indulge her husband to a reasonable extent. The husband quite selfishly wants to escalate the kink to a blatantly unreasonable extent, either harassing innocent third parties or emotionally manipulating his wife by making her think he is. Where's his obligation to be GGG? We don't know from the letter how giving and game he's been in fulfilling her sexual needs, but he's obviously not good, in the sense of being a good person, as it's clear in the letter that she hates his guts now.

All this talk about her 'duty' to indulge his kink completely misses the point. If they are both partners in this relationship, they both have a duty to understand where each other's comfort zones are and to only push, not break, those limits. MHIO's husband has overindulged in his kink to the point where it's creating a full-blown sexual incompatibility with his wife. He's taken a fetish that she was at worst indifferent to and has turned it into something that terrorizes her. It's not prudish or sex-negative to say that *he's doing it wrong*, and that if he wants to keep his formerly GGG wife he needs to dial it the fuck down. Because it's no longer about sex, about his kink, about how sad it is that she's not letting him get his rocks off just the way he wants to. It's about their relationship, and how he's ruining it by being a selfish, out of control prick. And if he's fine with that, then they can divorce and he can go find the full-time domme of his dreams and she can go find someone who can manage a basic modicum of self-control and everyone will be happy.

Except the kids, but you can never keep kids happy anyway, so fuckit.

Marrena @ 138: The reading comprehension level shown in this thread certainly has convinced me that not all women are superior.

Are you at all capable of separating your sexual fantasies from reality? I hope you are joking.

And I second #139.

I'd also like to add this--we don't KNOW what this man has done. We "know" what his wife says he'd told her he'd done. That's it. She never witnessed any of his actions, did she? No.

I'm betting that a man who was a 28 year old virgin isn't the poster child for verbalizing his needs. I'll bet you all fifty cents that his confessions are made up BS meant to get a reaction from his wife. Fantasies, if you will.

Think about it. So far, his wife is the only person he has felt safe enough with to not only have sex, but also to tell her his kinks. Do you really think this uptight, frightened guy is running around, repeatedly accosting the women at VS?

Do you really think the staff at VS aren't trained on how to handle inappropriate creeps? And do you really think they'd let the extra creepy creeper slathered in creep sauce back in their stores once he transgressed? Maybe, but doubtful.

I'll bet Mr. Man would be frog marched out of the mall the instant his face appeared at the VS window if he really was doing all he claimed to do.

Nope. My BS detector is on five klaxon alert. And the BS is coming both from the mate who sounds desperate for his wife's attention and the wife who can't for the life of her understand why he's acting this way when she's been sooooo GGG--in a whatever sort of way.

@143 "Avi"

How do you know she has been GGG? As I said (@139) it certainly doesn't come through in the letter. What does come through is her distaste for the kink that is at the heart of his sexuality. Such grimacing distain after many years in the relationship isn't a very promising indicator of a GGG, I think any reasonable person would agree.

I think you are clearly projecting.

And I think your point about "comfort zones" and "breaking limits" is also based on nothing more than your imagination. In the first place, how do you know what the limits were or what her comfort zone is? What if her comfort zone is severely restrictive? What if it is that very seldom she will indulge him reluctantly with a bit of dispirited and impatient dirty-talk while he strokes off? What if before the marriage she promised the moon? You don't know, and neither do I.

When we marry, part of the deal is to help the other person be sexually fulfilled. That isn't working out here and you ASSUMPTION is that it is because he is insatiable and unreasonable. But the facts neither support or disprove this. We don't know what alternatives she has offered. Have they tried intense role play? (Intensity is a big thing for the fetishist.) Has she agreed to meet and get to know other people in their area into the scene? Has she agreed to seek a willing partner to "witness" or participate in their scenes? Has she agreed to let him seek extramarital help on this without her?

Being GGG means searching for solutions that both of you can live with - and going the extra mile out of your own "comfort zone" to make it work. Interestingly, that is what marriage means too.

Shaking divorce papers at them and telling them they need therapy every time someone gets pushed from their comfort zone is not productive, fair, or healthy.

@144 kitschnsync

Perhaps she was joking about the female superiority, but she has a really good point about the reading comprehension by the posters to this thread.

Okay, so we don't know that he has done it for real or not...

BUT...

His wife is operating under the assumption that he actually did what he said he did. If they were factual episodes, she has every right and reason to be considering divorce or worse. He has a duty to either clue her in that he is just fantasizing out loud, or else to quietly accept the divorce papers when she files because she took him seriously.

He also needs to apologize for terrorizing her by pretending for so long that it was factual. As long is he is keeping her in the dark, it isn't about her indulging his fantasy life, it's about him inflicting it on her.

So either he is a complete asshole for actually doing all that stuff, or he is a complete asshole for pretending so convincingly to have done it.

@141 Joon

I think you are missing one of my points. We don't know from the letter that he actually did these things. As you say, the letter writer says he TOLD HER he did these things. My point was that, based on my own experience and acquaintance in the fetish at hand, there is a better than even chance he was lying to her about them.

Even if he was telling the truth, the letter doesn't really tell us he was "peeping," only that he "could see her." I live in a city. Just looking out the window to see the stars you see any number of folks who have left their curtains out doing this or that. (By the way, given that he "tried" but failed to contact the neighbor, it seems likely it is something like this, then the woman in the cape-cod next door that they BBQ with?) Peeping is your projection.

And what is alleged is that he was preparing to tell a coworker a secret side of him. You are telling me that making friends with someone who works where you do and eventually growing so close that you take them into your confidence about your inner feelings is a "criminal activity?" Come on.

(Hell, for all we know the VS salesclerk asked him if they were for him and flirted with him about it first. Very unlikely, I agree, but not unheard of.)

The thing is that you are putting your own frame on and reading your own HUGE ASSUMPTIONS into the letter - in each case assuming that he is the most crazed inappropriate psycho creep.

Everyone I have read on here has agreed that if he did these things in the manner that people like you ASSUME (it is NOT in the letter) then this is totally unacceptable behavior. What I am saying is, "what if your assumptions are off and it isn't like that." It seems like you and others on here are VERY reluctant to entertain scenarios that fit the known facts but do not make him such a villain (Or explore the implications of such scenarios.)

I think that reluctance - and your assumptions - say a lot more about you all than it does about MHIO's husband.

I'd advise MHIO to check her husband's phone records, credit cards and e-mail accounts for communications with a phone sex service that specializes in femme dommes. If this story is real, he is far enough gone that it's likely he is paying a woman to "force" him to push the envelope -- taking direction from someone he is paying would be consistent with his kinks.

However, I think Andreas375 might have better BS monitors than most of us. The letter could well be from a man who is describing his fantasies of cuckolding, humiliation, etc.

As a phone sex operator at Niteflirt.com, I have talked with men who do their best, and sometimes succeed for a while, to convince me that what they're saying is "real" instead of fantasy. And the scenarios MHIO presents are pretty common fantasies in my neck of the phone sex world.

@148 avast2006

OK, let's assume that he did do these things. But what are the facts around them?

Are you arguing that it is never, ever, appropriate to try to find out who that attractive person you caught a glimpse of is so that you might strike up an acquaintance and make a pass at them. (Another way of describing the "neighbor" episode.)

Are you arguing that it is never, ever, acceptable to become such a close friends with a fellow employee that you share with them personal confidences? (The "coworker" episode.)

Are you arguing that it is never OK to flirt with attractive sales clerks and tell them things about yourself? (The Victoria's Secret episode.)

In each of these cases, the thing could have been wildly inappropriate and just stomach-turning wrong. Maybe he was stalking the neighbor, and peeping. Watching with a telescope and taking pictures with a long-range lens. Maybe he was victimizing a coworker, a clerical staffer who had to humor his unwelcome confidences Anita Hill style to keep her job in this economy. Maybe he was just blurting out humiliating things to shell-shocked salesclerks at the mall like a turrets sufferer.

Or maybe not. Maybe the neighbor is a stranger from the high-rise down the way he caught a brief accidental glimpse of because she didn't close her curtains one night. Maybe the coworker is close pal and drinking buddy who he feels he can share with without rebuke the things that make him small in the eyes of his spouse. Maybe the salesclerk's experienced eye marked the nervous fumbling man looking at the XL panties as a crossdresser and started to coax his story from him with delight.

We don't know and the letter doesn't say.

So even if he did "all this stuff" we don't know he is an asshole because we don't know what "all this stuff" actually was. So why not stop imagining and focus on the facts we know.

@ 148 "He also needs to apologize for terrorizing her by pretending for so long that it was factual. As long is he is keeping her in the dark, it isn't about her indulging his fantasy life, it's about him inflicting it on her."

Certainly. Absolutely. Totally reasonable and necessary. Couldn't agree more.

I don't think that's going to happen any time soon though. Just another wild guess based upon experience.

The guy needs therapy, there's no doubt about it. Prolly the wife does too and from a kink and sex positive counselor as Dan suggested.

What I don't get is the antagonism from some folks about Marrena's sensible and intelligent comments. What she suggests does and can work. I've have seen it happen in RL so it must be true. ;P

She's simply suggesting the wife accept the reality of having a subbie husband and turning that info to the advantage of everyone involved.

Getting to that point will no doubt involve heavy duty counseling and quite possibly some divorce papers being drawn up. But let's think beyond the counseling and legalities to the possibilities as well, shall we?

This comment is directed at Vanilla Swirl. It is easy for you to stand on your soapbox and judge me. I like how you imply that I am not a GGG wife. I tried that, it did not work, this has progressivley gotten worse. I am open sexually, as long as it about constent and respect. I so happy for you that you are so sexually liberated and Im the sexually fridig wife. I m sure you would if a coworker suddenly told you he would love to piss all over you while dressed like a woman, real turn on. My husband mislead before marriage making me believe this was strictly between him and I. He is an embarrassment at this point, that he does not understand sexual boundaries between adults, is frightening. I have a daughter with this man and I do not want her to think this is normal behavior. I knew my husband and had been dating him for a while and I was never completely comfortable with his kink, but I was willing to indulge him. I cant how uncomfoprtable an coworker or salesgirl would feel knowing my husband sexual interests, its laughable. And are you fucking insane to say is it never ok to tell a Vicorias Secret salesgirl personall things about yourself? What just because she sells underwear for minimum wage that actomatically sexualizes her and mean shes up for sex talk?? I suppose because I like to fuck bananas I can tell the produce guy I like to get it on with a really hard banana. Unfucking believeable.

And I meant to add, VanillaSwirl, you are so concerned that I am not meeting his needs and being GGG. Do you think he has EVER asked what Im into, what my needs are? No. So I hate to burst your "oh she is a fridig woman and its her fault deal," but that aint the case. I am very fun sexually, but I call me crazy, I dont enjoy abuse and Im gonna go out on a limb and bet the other women do not like it as well.

I'm sorry, but the whole "If his wife acted differently at home, he wouldn't have to go out and do these things" argument is reminding me of the "If she didn't overcook the pot roast, her husband wouldn't have to beat her so hard" argument.

(And VSC, he isn't flirting with people. He's telling them (or threatening to tell them) personal details about his sex life, details that I know I wouldn't want a co-worker, customer or neighbor revealing to me.)

MHIO is setting himself up for a lot of things, from lawsuits to jail time to a straight up beatdown. Sorry kids, but there's only one person you should be discussing your fetishes with, and that's the person you're fucking. This guy's no better than the creeper at the bus stop flashing people. FUCKING SEVER.

@114: thanks, I was proud of that bit.

@114: thanks, I was proud of that bit.

gah, sorry for the double post.

Marrena and Vanilla Swirl Couple, you go on ahead and make all the assumptions you like about his wife's lack of indulgence, but continue to lambast other commenters for assuming that the wife may be telling the truth.

Also, she deserves it for not completely indulging his kink even if she's not comfortable there, the VS salesgirls were probably asking for it, and peeping your neighbors is OK, as is making openly sexual statements/requests to your coworkers. Are we all on the same page now?

Much like the husband of the letter-writer, it sounds like you folks have a very hard time separating sexual fantasy from actual reality.

Hey Vanilla Swirl Couple, have you read enough yet to clue you in that the wife appears to be basically monogamous? If he actually did any of that, regardless of how much time he spent ever so sensitively grooming these women to be his close friends so that they would be receptive to his little bombs when he chose to drop them...that would still make him a cheating POS, on top of everything else.

The only possible saving grace is if it was all just a fantasy, and we've already covered how that makes him an asshole for making his wife believe it was for real.

It's our responsibility as functional human beings to be able to police our indulgences. We need to be able to recognize when they're doing us more harm than good. This is true of booze, drugs, porn, video games, masturbation, kinks, and especially kinks that our partners aren't entirely keen on. There's a reason why we as a society look down on unrepentant junkies, why we pity and mock broken-down celebrities like Lindsay Lohan. We can see their inability to recognize the harm they're doing to themselves. The bulk of the people in these comments have been down on MHIO's husband because we can see his inability to recognize the harm he's doing to his relationship. It's not about his kink any longer. It's about his lack of self-control and how it's driving his wife away from him.

"What if her comfort zone is severely restrictive? What if it is that very seldom she will indulge him reluctantly with a bit of dispirited and impatient dirty-talk while he strokes off? What if before the marriage she promised the moon?" Then they were never sexually compatible to begin with and they should get divorced anyway. MHIO already indulged him as much as she was comfortable with, he rewarded her by escalating to a point that she's extremely uncomfortable with. We don't need to read between any lines to know that, it's plainly evident in her letter. It's his responsibility at this point to recognize that his kink has become toxic to his relationship and walk it back. If he's incapable of doing so she has every right to leave him, just as she has every right to leave him for coming home drunk every night or gaining a hundred pounds or spending every waking moment of his life playing Warcraft or blowing all their money on crack or gambling or scammy pornsites or...

Maybe things would work out fine if she was more indulgent. It'd certainly be great for him, anyway. It'd be great if all of us had partners who allowed us to indiscriminately indulge our passions. I'd personally love to have a partner who was willing to fully support me financially so I could just laze around a read all day and night. (Yes, I am that boring.) But I don't expect to find that person. And I don't think MHIO can be that person for her husband. Maybe hiring someone to be that person could work, but frankly, at this point it's too damn late. The damage has already been done. He has to be able to fix that damage and get their relationship back to a safe place before she should even consider foisting him off onto a pro, to do otherwise ignores his underlying problem. It amounts to rewarding him for bad behavior, like a Warcraft widow getting her husband a year's subscription for Xmas. Until he learns to police this indulgence of his nothing will really get better.

@19,@37 --

No, that will backfire. Think about it. He likes to be dominated, punished. So if she sets up rules and says don't do this or else you'll be punished, obviously he'll - at least on occasion -- break the rules in order to get the "punishment" (which for subs, esp. those with masochistic tendencies really isn't a punishment in the dictionary sense of the word.)

But these are rules that he absolutely can not break no matter what. Therefore the consequences shouldn't be sexualized. Dan is absolutely right on this. She needs to say he must stop or else get divorced. There is no other alternative-- other than her getting a divorce without giving him the opportunity to change...which, might actually not be a bad idea.

@155 + 156: Assuming you are MHIO, it sounds to me as if you are very angry (rightfully so) about the situation and what it is doing to you and your daughter. I hope that you realize that your number one priority is keeping your daughter out of harm's way and at the rate your husband is going there will be a train wreck as he will get into trouble. I am truly surprised that he has not gotten into trouble already for what he told his coworker (if he told that to me while I was at work; I would be screaming, "hostile work environment," at the top of my lungs.)

If you haven't already done so; get yourself to a lawyer, if not for your sake for your daughter's, to understand all of your options and be ready to do what is needed even if your not ready. I would also suggest that you head to a perv - friendly therapist to get counseling on how to effectively deal with the issues vis a vis your husband. The reason why I am suggesting a perv - friendly one for you is that he or she will not freak out about the specific fetish and work on the real issues of your anger and your need to better communicate what you want out of relationships.

I hope this helps.

Some of you have some bass-ackwards ideas about GGG. GGG just means to keep an open mind and try new things, even if they are a little outside your comfort zone. It does NOT mean you have to go along with something that repulses you, puts you in legal jeopardy, or makes you less attracted to the person you're with. Everyone has their likes and dislikes.

Personally, I would have been permanently turned off by this guy the moment he said he likes to wear panties. Not because I think there is anything wrong with a guy having that kink, but simply because I find men in women's clothing to be unattractive to the point of drying up my libido entirely. And I'm sure I'm not the only woman who feels that way, so this guy really hit the jackpot to find a woman who is not turned off by that. But instead of considering himself lucky, what does he do? He selfishly punishes the envelope to the point where she might be an accessory to his possibly illegal activities, without any regard for her feelings about it at all.

Seriously, this guy was a virgin until age 28 - not exactly popular with the ladies even before any of them knew of his kink. How likely is it he's going to be able to do any better? He needs a serious reality check.

And Dan was being rather charitable to suggest that she give him an ultimatum and a chance to clean up his act rather than just divorcing him. After the lack of consideration he has shown her, she has every right to get a divorce regardless of any promises he might make.

#169, could you please tell what he could be charged with? I am totally naive to legal side of this. Thank you so much.

They're not as pretty, but the dimensions are almost the same and they're waaaay less expensive than the Fascinator Throes:

http://www.babyproofingplus.com/item1496…

Which makes me wonder why the heck the Fascinator Throes are so much money. Oh wait, the shame tax.

@ 155 and 156

I don't know if you are really MHIO or not, but you are really misrepresenting my comments.

I never said that you are frigid, for instance. I said that we could not know from you letter whether you were GGG and that the tone of your letter and its disdain for your husband's fetish suggested otherwise.

I also never said it was OK to abuse salesclerks. In fact, I said just the opposite a number of times. To make a point I did describe a scenario - which I noted was unlikely - in which even this was not what it seemed. I never said that is how it went down, I just pointed out that we couldn't know. (And yes, having been propositioned myself by salesclerks, they are not always victims.)

If you are MHIO, than you know more than we do about the situation and are not just looking at the printed letter. So why not share with us some details that put to rest some questions? For instance, Dan has noted that your husband could engage in his fetish more sensibly and consensually with a willing partner (paid or volunteer) outside the marriage. Have you two tried this? Is that OK with you?

When you talk to him, what is it that turns him on about what he is doing? Does he say he is seeking more extreme situations than your role-play? Or does he get off on the exposure? If it is the latter, have you two considered exposing him to an old school chum who lives in another city or some other more discrete alternative?

Finally, you say now that feel misled because your husband said it was only your secret before you married. Based on my experience it is more likely that your inexperienced husband believed that when you married - either because it was true or he believed it to be true in his lack of self-knowledge - than that he misled you. You say that you have gone above and beyond satiating his fetish within the relationship; if this is so, then obviously it wasn't true when your husband told you that. But it was almost certainly what he believed. People find out more about themselves as they go on. They grow and change. Take it from someone who has been married way longer than you: Working on growing together and nurturing each other to grow healthfully is a big part of what marriage is all about.

My best advice for you would be my advice for him:

A) Your souse's perceived wrongs, slights, or failures DO NOT excuse you from meeting YOUR responsibilities in the marriage.

B) You need to step into your spouses shoes and try to see the world from their angle.

C) Always try to be the bigger person, and remember that if it was worth marrying, it is worth working like hell to make the marriage work.

Good luck.

Vanilla Swirl, Im having a hard time believeing you really mean what you say. I CANNOT believe you last comments are, my spouses "slights" do not excuse me from meeting my responsiblities in the marriage. I should be the bigger person and work like hell. Where do my husband responsibilities come in to play or when should he work like hell for the marraige. You seem to imply that is the woman duty to please her man, no matter what the circumstance, thats fucking bullshit. When I signed up for this deal, marriage, I signed up for a rather unusual sex life that was monogamous. When I had children with this man, that was still the deal. So all your bullshit talk of how I need to be sensitive to his needs and I need to live up to my responsibilties, Fuck you, sorry, I had to say it. My husband is not sensitive to those other womens feeling, or mine! I did go far and above trying to satisfy him in house and look where that got me. NO, I am not comfortable "hiring" someone to please my husband. My husband operates on his ultimate needs what he desires most, not what is best for his marraige or his children, but what is best for him. That does not work in a marriage. This situation, as you make it out to be, is not all about my husband and his needs, wants and desires. Not once did you ask, does he indulge you in your fantasies, does he please you? NO, you tell me I need top try harder, vomit.

I would go with vinyl sheets underneath the Fascinator Throes if you're a really copious ejaculator. The moisture-proof barrier inside the throes is not, in my experience, moisture-proof.

@ 174.

You need to get to work on the anger yesterday. Otherwise you may wind up making a decision that is detrimental to your kids and yourself because you are so caught up in it.

Sadly, I really think this won't have a happy ending. Which means you have to be the big person, hustle into therapy so someone can help you do the hard work to set the anger aside (Been there. Done that.) so that your kids will benefit from your having a clear head to make the hard decisions that lead toward the least bad resolution.

Good luck.

@174

Yeah, what mjesf said. The vast majority of posters here are in your corner.

Now, I'm not surprised at all by your anger, and you have every right to be. But when we're angry, whether it be the slow-burn or white-hot variety, we're liable to make mistakes. Dan's advice is good advice, begin to DTMFA. It's not as easy to do as to write, so you need all your wits about you.

Good luck from me as well.

*Applauds Sex Positive Lawyer*

And in case any of the English Comprehension snarks were about my run-on sentence, I DID IT ON PURPOSE!

mwah hahahahahaaa!

Seriously though, people only start picking on spelling and grammar when their logic crumbles. I know, because I've done it myself.

Where did Marrena go, anyhow?

Here Hear!

I would like to third the benevolent good-luck-wishing to MHIO.
I hope you find some relief to your plight, soon.

@174: Seems to me like Vanilla is being pretty reasonable. S/he has stated that there simply isn't enough information to suggest that you've been GGG and you're responding with some pretty strained interpretations of his/her post(s). For instance, I don't think you could argue that at any point they've "implied that it's the women's duty to please their man". And not JUST because what they imply isn't fully under their control.

In short: You need to calm down, you're giving us all diabetes.

wife of husband,

You've been given a crappy situation, and Vanilla Swirl couple is grasping at straws. S/he is going out of his/her way to find possible excuses for bad behavior. The possibility that your husband's behavior is anything other than morally reprehensible are so unlikely that it's laughable. I suspect Vanilla Swirl clings to these possibilities because s/he thinks that criticizing *one* person with a fetish for bad behavior is the same as criticizing the fetish itself. Rather than admit that people with his/her fetish are capable of evil things, s/he decided to shift the blame to you.

You probably know all of this, of course. But I thought I'd say it so that you knew you that someone else agrees that you've done all you can. If I read things correctly, the majority of people on this thread are going with the most likely scenario--namely that you are entirely in the right.

Of course, if arguing with Vanilla Swirl helps you blow of steam when you desperately need to, then ignore me. :)

Wife of husband: out of curiosity, aside from his sexual deviancy, has he shown any particular signs of being Really Bad at picking up social clues?

Vanilla Swirl's just caught up in defending his/their own kink, but it's not the kink that's at issue here, it's breaking agreements with one's partner and acting crazy inappropriate with neighbors and coworkers, or at least claiming to have done so. I hope MHIO works it out.

To #183 Yes, I think my husband is a tad bit delusional, thinking all women want to be involved with him sexually and not even that, but they want to make fun of him and see him in panties. He has told me he thinks all women, or should I say, any women he is attracted to, would love to sexually humilate him. He thinks all women are into this stuff! He has said things that scare me like, He could tell the Victorias Secret salesgirl was into by the way she looked at him, freaky. Or the women he emailed from work, telling her that he needed to confide in her a deep dark embarrasing secret. I asked him why on earth do you think she would be into this shit and he said, Well she did want to know my deep dark embarrasing secret, and of course she knew I was talking about the fact that I have a small penis and like to wear womens panites. These women do not know of his intentions, and then he drops the bomb, that they cant see coming.

er, what I meant was, *aside* from the "oh, every woman in the world wants to sexually humiliate me" delusion, has he shown signs of being Really Bad at responding to social cues? For example, will he say rude or inappropriate things, then be baffled when people get annoyed at him? Does he tend to dress over-formally or over-casually for events, and not necessarily in a consistent pattern? Will he keep talking to someone who's obviously trying to ignore him?... this could indicate a different kind of problem than if his only social blunders are the sex stuff.

Hey #186, no he is not inappropriate in other settings. If anything is very quiet in social situation, doesnt have much to say. So it makes it even more bizarre how brazen he is regarding his sexual desires. The people who really know him, family, friends would be BLOWN away if they knew. He comes off as extremely quiet, and polite.

@181 DianeLGD
@184 Joon

I was neither grasping at straws or caught up defending my kink, I was merely pointing out to a hysterical lynch mob that they were assuming a great deal of facts not in evidence.

I always maintained that if the dark, nightmare scenarios that were feverishly pouring onto this board were true that there is no excuse for MHIO's husband's behavior (indeed, that he was responsible for its shitty sides even if the full circumstances were less appalling than people had assumed) and I always allowed it might be true. (You may have noticed, for instance, that I never criticized Dan's advice to MHIO, since he may well know more than he shared about the situation. But you and I can only go by what he did share which did not support what was being said.)

My difference with the two of you and your pitch-fork wielding cohorts on this board has been that I am willing to entertain other possible scenarios and have not rushed to judgement based on the scanty facts provided in the letter.

And while my own experiences in the world of submissive cross-dressing humiliation fetishist has fed my skepticism, the truth is that I would have had the same reaction (and have) to other situations, even those where I find the behavior in question disgusting. The thing is I am something of sucker for due process and methodical reasoning and deeply suspicious of the kind of hyperventilating bullshit that has characterized some of the other commenters here.

Now we have a poster - wifeofhusband - who claims to be MHIO herself and is providing us with all sorts of new information. IF s/he is who s/he says she is, (and I personally remain skeptical - the limits of the Internet) then the new information answers all kinds of questions and shuts down all kinds of scenarios. But I still don't see how that excuse the rest of you for dismissing them all out of hand and assuming the worst from the word go.

@174 & 185

Assuming for the moment you are MHIO as you claim, I'll chalk up your earlier wild distortions of my position to your understandable emotional state. (I will also address you here on the assumption you are MHIO.)

Let me get this out of the way right up front: Posts #174 and #185 contain all kinds of exactly the information about the circumstances around your husband's behavior that I have been pointing out we did not have. (As I said in my earlier post to you, you know a lot more about the situation than we do.) In light of these revelations, I stand by what I said at the get go: If he is compelling women to be part of his scene without their consent there is no excuse for that and he does indeed need a cold slap of reality followed by therapy.

I also stand by my advice to you in my previous post, but it seems you misunderstood me, so let me try to clarify. Let's start with some reassurances of what I was NOT saying: A wife does not have some greater duty to please her husband than he has to please her. Indeed, to my way of thinking the idea is repugnant. Nor does any spouse have a duty "no matter what the circumstances;" we can all think of some circumstances that void the whole implied marital contract.

What I was saying and am saying is this, and I am sorry if you don't like to hear it: Everyone is first and foremost responsible for their own behavior. Your husband is responsible for anything and everything he has done that is asshole, wrong, and vile. He has no one to blame but himself and that would be true no matter how light or serious his offenses were. And also this applies to you.

Maybe you haven't done anything at all wrong in this; (how would I know?) that is not relevant to my point. You cannot use his misbehavior as an excuse for not doing the right thing yourself; two wrongs do not make a right. Surely you teach your children the same?

Back to what I am not saying: I am not saying that this means you need to put up with his bullshit or be his doormat. If as you (now, finally) tell us you both agreed to a monogamous relationship and he has been behaving with contempt for that very basic agreement than you are indeed wronged and shouldn't take it.

What you should do is, yes, be the bigger person and meet you responsibilities as he fails to meet his. Your responsibilities in the current situation are to demand respect from him, insist he stop his attempts to cheat on you, and try to help him with his problem. How do you help? Demand he go to therapy, go to counseling together, have many long honest conversations in which you try to find a way to work it out. Being the bigger person means not taking the bait he offers by getting petty in these conversations; it means not lashing back viciously when he does something that hurts you; and yes, it means not belittling his fetish and sexuality as a way to get back at him for betraying your trust. (And it may mean at least considering for debate some solutions you clearly aren't thrilled with.)

The troublesome thing about marriage is that while everyone is responsible for their own behavior, your spouses (regardless of gender) problem is your problem too and spouses are do have a duty to rise above sacrifice "me" for "us" even in many circumstances where their partner is being an selfish, self-absorbed, shit head. No, it is not fair. Life is not fair.

The duty is not unlimited (not "under any circumstances") and it is your call when the threshold is crossed, when the fight becomes pointless, (and no one on this board can possibly know how much you have already tried) but (as I was saying) any marriage worth entering into is worth fighting for. Dan gave you some advice about how to fight for your marriage. (You will note that he did not tell you to DTMFA, move and change the locks - and he has shown no hesitation about giving that advice to others.) Whether you want to or not is your call. My advice, (and Dan's I believe) are offered with kindness and good intentions.

P.S. - By the way, your concern now seems to be very different from that expressed in your letter (at least as printed by Dan). In that letter, your concern seemed to be that your husband was revealing his sexual preferences outside of the marriage - being "out" as you said in you sign-off - and the risk to status and reputation implied. Now your concern is that your husband is trying to initiate extramarital dalliances despite your objection and his previous promises to you - to cheat in other words.

No doubt (if you are who you claim to be) these worries jumbled together in your angst. But they are very different issues and you need to be clear with yourself about what you can and can't live with if you are going to negotiate (yes, that is what I said - that is what marital arguments and ultimatums are) with your husband successfully to bring him back in line and save your marriage. I hope that you do.

@164 avast2006

Actually, all we still have is the letter. There is someone on this thread claiming to be MHIO who may or may not be. If they are and what they say is correct - well, I've already covered that (more than once, really.)

As I said in the postscript of my last reply to "wifeishusband," this whole thing about it being about infidelity is really a shift from what was being discussed at first. Again, if it is about fidelity, I've covered that.

What I find interesting are you explicit assumptions that if one spouse is monogamous and the other is not that is ipso facto cheating, and that "cheating" is unacceptable in all circumstances. The first assumption is totally ridiculous and second one counter to Dan's repeated admonitions.

The trouble with you is that you are a conclusion looking for an argument. You decided first he was a monster and now look for any old excuse to set him ablaze.

My own judgements are conditional based on the facts. IF (and it is a significant if - here on the Internet I could claim to be Vlad Putin) 'wifeishusband" is really MHIO and it all went down like she says, that leads to one conclusion. If the facts not supplied in the column are different we could end up at some very different outcomes.

You start with the end and work back, I work forward and let the chips fall where they may. Sorry to rain on you tea-party rally, but I will stick with my way.

hahaha, now disagreeing with the previous poster makes us not just a pitchfork-and-torch-wielding mob, but tea partiers as well.

ahhh, the ad hominem attack, province of those who have nothing else to bring to the discussion.

190: Yes, precisely. All we have is the letter. It's either the letter, or setting the letter aside and making shit up out of our own heads. Your whole take on "not in evidence" is laughable. Her recounting of the situation MIGHT be fictional, but I absolutely guarantee that yours is, no matter which way you spin it.

I have no reason to attempt to prove one way or the other what actually happened (this is not a court of law), but merely to respond to the situation as if it were hypothetically true. Which is exactly what she is doing. Whether or not it actually happened the way she described, she utterly BELIEVES that to be the case and is responding accordingly. Of course she believes it. Why would she write in, asking advice on how to respond to something that she knew didn't actually happen the way she wrote? Similarly, why would Dan withhold parts of the letter that would cast it in an entirely less sinister light, and then proceed to give advice based on the darker interpretation? What would be the utility in either of those? You still haven't addressed the idea that he is, at very best, fooling her most cruelly.

You, on the other hand, are going into this determined to disbelieve everything -- indeed to present every possible scenario except the one that she wrote -- in a transparent attempt to excuse behavior that, wonder of wonders, coincides with your own kink.

As to whether it is about infidelity or about grossly inappropriate behavior: it can easily be about both at the same time -- grossly inappropriate, extramarital behavior. It isn't her responsbility to lay out all factors in dissertation style. She is unhappy with his sexual misconduct, and there is plenty of it to go around. If you want to accuse Dan of editing for brevity, that would be a lot better reason to suspect him.

I do have to clarify, these are not situation involving fantasy, all the situations occured. Many more things have happened as well, that I did not include in the letter. What makes this situation even more difficult to deal with, is my husband told me, No,the coworkers did not know what was going on. I assumed because he approached them sexually, the women must have been involved, consenting to his advances. He made it very clear, the women did not know what he was talking about, he was just hoping they would be into it. He assumed because he saw our neighbor undressing, that must mean she wanted him to call her so she could sexually humilate him. It is very humiliating walking around with your husband and children in public and being terrified that you will run into one of the women that my husabnd has been inappropriate with. It would be a very different story if my husband told me, yes I cheated and the woman I did it with was so into my fetish. What he is telling me, is he does not care if the women is into it, he approahes them and hopes that to be the case. I feel he abuses these women, using them in hopes they will humiliate him sexually and he abuses me, I did not sign up for an open marriage. And I am afraid, one day he will approach the wrong woman and either face trouble with the lawa or get his ass kicked by an angry husband/boyfriend, because some of the he approached have men in there lives.

@191
The tea-party reference may have been a bit over the top, but really the “logic” Avast2006 and many others have been displaying – in which they render judgment from an emotional gut reaction first and then fumble for any pretext to cling to the moral certainty of that judgment – is one of the defining characteristics of our TP friends. My reference was intended in as a criticism of the reasoning Avast2006 as using, not as an ad hominem Still, the TP does have many other connotations and it seems like overkill on the Savage Love board so I regret using it. I apologize to one and all.

I am a bit surprised to see YOU take offense, however. Weren’t you the one who said I “have a very hard time” separating fantasy from reality? Who dismissed me as “just caught up in defending” my own provincial kink? Who conflated my legitimate questions about background context with the stereotypical “she was asking for it” language of rape apologists? Seems a bit late for you to cry foul.

As long as we are chatting, I want to ask about something else you wrote. I agree with you that nonconsensual activity is always wrong and also that there is nothing wrong with fetishes like MHIO’s husbands. (I’m not at all certain that everyone else on this thread agrees with the second part, but let’s not worry about that.) What I am not so clear on is when you talk about everything being “OK in the realm of fantasy.” Again, I agree, and to the extent that you are discussing non-consensual activity fantasy is the limit we should all observe. But do you also mean to say that the activities discussed should remain fantasy even if the contacts are consensual?

This is the nub of one of the points I have been trying to make to what appears to be widespread (but thankfully not universal) outrage here. There are scenarios in which conversations with people who happen to be coworkers, neighbors, and even salesclerks that are frank about your sexuality can be consensual. When a fetishist can be “out,” as MHIO put it. Whatever the facts in MHIO’s specific case do you at least accept that there are cases when it could be OK for a fetishist to be open about her/his preferences? Or do you believe fetishes are a matter of shame and fetishists need to stay closeted?

Vanilla Swirl Couple @195: You asked the question "Are you arguing that it is never, ever, appropriate to try to find out who that attractive person you caught a glimpse of is so that you might strike up an acquaintance and make a pass at them?" You asked basically the same thing in msg#195. I brought up monogamy to answer that question. The answer is: FOR THIS COUPLE, no, it is never, ever appropriate. The reason is that their monogamy makes it inappropriate, kink or no kink. If they had a relationship that allowed for that sort of thing, she would have mentioned it.

And no, bringing up monogamy does not count as moving the goalposts. If anything, you are the one moving the goalposts by making it about the broadest possible general principles, rather than her specific situation. What the answer is for other couples is entirely irrelevant, because other couples didn't write in.

@194

If this is the case, (and you are MHIO) then I do not think that either infidelity or public embarrassment or an angry boyfriend is your main problem. I think the problem is that your husband is a deeply damaged individual who needs extensive treatment and possibly commitment immediately. I am not a psychiatrist, but anyone who is doesn’t care about the pain they inflict on strangers and is unrepentant about it should not be walking around the streets unmedicated. Further, that he openly taunts you about his intention and attempts to be get outside sex despite your strong objections sounds like spousal abuse to me.

The question for you now is whether you want to work it out or not. If you do, I suggest you follow Dan’s advice without delay. See the lawyer and get the papers rolling TODAY. You may also want to consider moving out or making him do so while the intervention goes down. If you feel that the continuing in marriage with this guy is a non-starter, (that the fight to save the marriage is hopeless, in other words), you should skip the demands and just serve the papers.

That’s my two cents and if you really are MHIO I wish you the best of luck.

There is nothing wrong with cross-dressing, "forced" or otherwise, erotic humiliation, etc. I myself have a lover who enjoys playing those games. There is, further, nothing wrong with fantasizing about your neighbors, your coworkers, or salesladies at the underwear store. Based on the letter, however--and this is all we have to go on, despite your many projections--this guy is approaching women in a highly inappropriate, possibly legally actionable manner, and implicating his non-consenting wife in this activity, and all the sex-positivity in the world does not excuse this. I know it's easy to be defensive about this kink--I know the difficulty my lover had in coming out to people and his struggle for acceptance of himself as a whole person, people can be terribly judgemental. There is nothing wrong with being "out" unless that violates a previous agreement with one's spouse. However, I stand by my statement that this guy's behavior is completely out of line--toward his wife and toward the other women he's involved. Your many desperate assertions that these women were probably into it anyway reflect a view shaped by your own desires, and while I understand how that can happen, it's still speculation and projection. I do want to commend you, however, for taking back the whole "tea party" thing...it's easy to fall back on insults and ad hominem attacks when dealing with a situation that is obviously so emotional and personal for you.

So I wrote a long, thoughtful response, and it didn't post. Here is a recap:

I do not at all believe fetishes should be closeted. Discussion of sexual matters of any kind, vanilla or kinky, are inappropriate in some contexts, however.

I don't "take offense" at your attacks on myself or any other poster--but I stand by my assertion that you are doing a lot of assuming and projecting on this particular subject. I understand how this can happen, though--I have a lover who's a lifestyle (not just sexual) crossdresser and I know how hard it has been for him to find acceptance of himself as a whole person. It's easy to get caught up in personal insults/ad hominem type attacks when the subject is so personal and emotional to you, I commend you for realizing that your "tea party" comparison was non-applicable.

199=long verson
200=short version

joon=short on sleep (and patience) today