Savage Love

1. Just to point out, to the sboo-supporting folks… She wrote “I wanted to spend my limited free time with him instead of _exploring_ our sexuality with multiple partners.” She’s the one who needed to “explore” while he was already into it. And she delayed “exploring” until they were married. Big. Mistake. And why? Because it would have been too stressful? I smell an excuse here… Not to say there aren’t jobs that require too much of your free time, but it obviously didn’t preclude her from having _some_ kind of sex.

   But while the wrath on her is deserved, her hubby should take some responsibility. What they did was “wait until marriage.” Whether it’s straight sex or their kinky lifestyle, they’re realizing what so many Christian couples discover that they’re not compatible. But why all the drama? It’s only been a year, write it off as a Starter Marriage & move on….

2. Dan Savage is back in the HAUS!!!!!!
   PLEASE PLEASE PU-LEAZE keep this up, minimize the politics and other antics, and give us more of this!!!!!!

3. OK….Granted, I dont have the equipment at my disposal every minute of every day per se….but my ex-husband claims that when he masturbated, he held the base of his cock so that he would feel the orgasm, yet not release any ‘messy’ stuff….(this is not the reason i divorced him by the way…) Dont other men do that at all?

4. @doulas1: the point of orgasm denial isn’t to avoid making a mess, it’s to subjugate the male’s desire for orgasm to his partner’s will. For men who enjoy this sort of thing, it’s fun to be near-constantly aroused but denied the release of orgasm until their partner chooses (rarely) to grant it.

   Fully experiencing and enjoying an orgasm that just happened to not make a mess would undermine the experience.

5. @doulas1 That’s called retrograde ejaculation. It’s categorized as a type of ruined orgasm, which are commonly used in orgasm denial situations. It’s a less common technique than thumbing, holding the thumb over the urethra when the man is about to ejaculate.

6. Damn Dan that answer was white hot. I mean scorching because that is how most sista’s think. It’s a kind of verbal castration that they use. And she is going to blow it in the wrong direction because judging by the tone of her letter she assumed that she was 100% correct in writing you, and when she found out she was wrong that is a deal breaker for her 2

7. While I am not debating whether SBOOO seems dishonest or unintelligent, I think putting all the blame on her is unfair. The husband, knowing she was unexperienced with swinging, polygamy, or what have you, married her. How brilliant a decision does that sound for anyone who takes marriage and divorce seriously?

8. Dan’s answer to SBOO is laughable, laughable horseshit.

   BOTH partners got motherfucking MARRIED before they started swinging, even though one said it’s basically a necessity, and the other said she’d “explore” it. how are they both not at fault, unless you’re Dan Savage?

   You never, ever get married with a huge question mark like that left unresolved. They both jumped in. It sounds like they were both in love and felt that the accomodating/negotiating process would make everybody happy in the event of a problem, because — hey, they’re both open, sexually adventurous, knowledgeable people. WRONG.

   SBOO, if you read this, it’s important to know that you don’t carry all the blame for what looks like irreconciliable differences. He married you, too, knowing you’d never been non-monogamous. I think it’s a really a good faith misunderstanding, but there’s actually room in this for the husband to be the bad guy too.

   How? Well, he mentions swinging upfront, so he’s got “full disclosure” covered, but he waits until this woman is married to him, and, when it obviously, painfully doesn’t work for her, he pushes it anyway — because he was open about it in the beginning. Yeah, and she was open, too. She was willing to “explore” it not knowing how much she’d like it. Now this guy is so clueless that he’s manipulating permission out of her to go to a swingers party the same night they talk about it. Really.

   But somehow, he shoulders no conceivable blame — ALL because he discllosed his kink upfront. I call bullshit. That doesn’t absolve him, he just wants that to absolve him. And Dan totally fell for it, because Dan is a stupid piece of shit.

   Either way, it’s a divorce.

9. And reading SBOO again, she considered the sex “experimental” while obviously considered it essential in the long term. She’s at fault, because even in this letter, she really doesn’t get that, and, well, that does come across as self-centered and clueless, that she kept blithely assuming it wasn’t essential to him — “experiments” are by definition not proven as essential — even though he made a point of saying otherwise.

   BUT — he married her before this sorted out. The blame is mutual. End of story.

10. To SBOO’s husband: DTMFA, and whatever you do, DO NOT HAVE A KID WITH THIS WOMAN. Matters will only be made worse if you do. Next time, make sure she goes on a swinging test drive before committing yourself.

11. Right on, Dan. I’m sure the killer work schedule didn’t preclude her from planning a massive wedding.

    Of course, about ten or fifteen years into her second marriage, SBOOB will probably love the idea of swinging when her hubby comes down with ED.

    Both barrels? She deserved a Gatling gun.

12. Look, I’m starting to think this whole prostate-milking thing is an urban kink-legend. Someone set me straight and tell me how it’s done!

13. Good lord, how long were SBOO and her husband dating before they got married? And he wasn’t swinging during that time? I agree, he’s just as at fault here. My guess is they’re both young and will have learned from this experience. Your life before marriage should look as much as possible like your life after marriage, or else you really don’t know the person you’re about to get hitched to.

14. Yes, she should have known herself better, and yes, he should have been more sensitive to her and paid more attention to this very key issue himself, if it was a deal-breaker for him. They were both idealistic. Probably because they were in love.

    It is too bad that society will tend to make him out to be the bad guy. But I don’t think either of them were honest enough about this issue.

    I have never met anyone who was completely self-aware and self-honest, to the point that issues did not come up. Is the point here to find out who is to blame? Or what to do now?

    I’m a woman who tends to be basically monogamous in a relationship with a man who has always been clear he is polyamorous. I knew it would not be easy for me, I knew I would get jealous, but I didn’t really know how I would feel. Sometimes it’s been excruciating. Sometimes I have considered leaving, and so has he.

    Neither of us knew if this could work going in, but we decided to do it anyway.

    But we have been together for several years now, and it is, for the most part, wonderful. He has two other partners, who are my closest friends. I still feel jealous sometimes, and have decided to stay with it, partly because this is an opportunity to grow in my own tendencies to feel threatened.

    So, I don’t think there is enough information to give a pat answer like “divorce”. It’s possible this could be worked out, but I don’t think a typical divorce counselor will be very open about poly. There is some social wisdom in the poly community about this, and there are people who do it.

15. SBOOO-hoo

    Been through this myself, but fortunately didn’t get married before the crisis. Lies is lies.

    I think your 99.99% of marriage counselors figure is high. We tried it. She selected the counselor (female) and got told off.

16. LOADED, milking the prostate is NOT a myth. We use it in medicine to obtain semen samples, and in animal breeding it’s used to get bull semen (although they use e-stim). Some men are quick about it and will ejaculate as soon as you enter them with a (gloved) finger. Others require a little work at it. Just like masturbation. How is it done? You stimulate the prostate and the easiest way to get to it is thru the back door. This can be done with a finger or a dildo of some kind. It’s the walnut sized/shaped lump you can feel in someones butt. Just about at the tip of a finger. This is why anal sex for men is so much fun. It’s often referred to as the buzz button. You and your wife should try it, but without alot of pressure or expectation at first. Read up on anal sex to get an idea of the do’s and don’t’s involved. She could also consider pegging as the only way you get to cum.

17. OK, so every word Dan said to SBOOO was true, but….

    Could he maybe have waited, oh, a day, before heading out to a sex party after his wife gave him the green light? I mean, could he at least pretend to give a shit about her feelings, unreasonable though they may be? I’m wondering if this might have something to do with her crushed feeling and all.

18. Regarding SBOOO: I agree that *some* compassion is in order. I just do not think one should assume that she was being manipulative in the hope of “converting” her husband to a monogamous lifestyle. That *may* have been her intention, but she *could* have genuinely thought that she would be able to be GGG for swinging. Maybe she was naive or stupid, but that is not the same thing as being deliberately deceptive.
    However, in the end, I do have to agree with the substance (if not the tone) of Dan’s advice to SBOOO. It really would have been best to give the swinging a try before marriage (work stress not being a very good reason to postpone it since work can almost always be a source of stress.)
    Also: I did a Google search for “saddlebacking” and the first two links that pop up are for that church, not our term. So let’s keep clicking away at the sites that define it our way 😉

19. Like Danielle, I am a kink and poly friendly therapist — both a couples/marriage therapist and a sex therapist. I’ll echo Danielle’s suggestion to look into finding a sex therapist. Be careful though — many people who claim to practice sex therapy have little to no formal training in the subject.

    I suggest using the AASECT (American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists) website to find a certified sex therapist who is well trained and comfortable working with poly and kink related issues (website: http://www.aasect.org -> for the public -> find a professional).

    To SBOOO: My personal (not professional) take on your situation is that Dan is correct insofar as your husband is unlikely to change, and it’s unfair to expect him to do so given his honesty up front. Thus, you are left with a choice of learning to cope with this part of your relationship or pursuing separation/divorce.

    That said, you may find that you can work through the negative feelings you are having about this situation. I wish I could send you an unpublished article that I came across that gets into some of the nitty-gritty of jealousy in poly relationships. Suffice to say that you are either knowingly or unknowingly buying into a lot of cultural myths about love and sex, and these may be at the root of your feelings.

20. @bigbear I know some guys can hit orgasm (and ejaculate) from anal stimulation, but I thought prostate milking was where prostate stimulation produces semen *without* the usual orgasm and ejaculation experience? I read that the cock can even be iced or restrained for the duration to prevent erection and climax?

    That’s what we’re going for, anyway. As I mentioned upthread, we’ve tried this a few times without any luck. My wife uses an Aneros on me like a dildo, and we’ve kept this up for 15 mins or so at a time, but never produced more than a few drops of what looks like pre-cum.

    If I could ask a naive question for a moment… does gay anal sex always produce semen even before / without the receiver actually climaxing? If not, what do you do differently, beyond the straightforward in-and-out, if you’re going for “prostate milking”? Harder? Softer? Different angle? Different tool? What’s the deal?

21. mjd has a point. Give it a second will ya. Maybe this guy didn’t give a rat’s ass about his wife’s feelings. I know many of you, Dan, included hold this champion up like Jordan himself. However there is a little devil on my shoulder whispering maybe this guy got off on his poser wife’s disgruntled attempts to swing. DICK

22. Marriage, the long train in and out of many dark tunnels.

    And don’t let anybody tell you other wise.

    Thanks Dan.

23. Bigbear, I think you’re confusing prostate milking with a prostate orgasm… the idea behind prostate milking is that there is no orgasm. Unlike pegging.

24. I love the whole surreality of the prostate milking thing weaving in and out of the serious relationships texts. Like that beat the beaver game with the pop up heads.

    One thing I don’t get is SBO3’s husbands viewpoint actually. We swing and we do so because I am incredibly hot for my wife and I want to see her in action. She’s basically my personal pocket pornstar but for obvious reasons she doesn’t want to make movies, so we go about it this way. It would be inconceivable for us to “swing” apart; it appears totally to miss the point for me. We swing for each other. The others involved are props. “Swinging” apart looks more to me like, well, adultery, i.e. just going and fucking other people. It’s not swinging.

    I am baffled by him running out to an orgy on his own. This looks like he just wants to have a lot of random sex (hooray for that, BTW). But then why get married?

25. @LOADED

    Ruined orgasms are very effective. Thumbing is very frustrating, as my GF mentioned. So is edging till you dribble. The goal there is to prevent spurting.

26. Just wondering, how old are SBOOO and her soon-to-be-ex? I can much more easily imagine a 21 y.o. honestly miscalculating. To paraphrase some a judge once told me, “I find it hard to see a 35 year old as a misguided youth.”

27. I agree 100% with the advice to SBOO, but I’d add “Divorce. Get it over with, and do your best not to make him feel shittier through the process than he already will. Don’t parade his kink before your family and friends: his kink isn’t the problem. The problem in your marriage is your willingness to misrepresent your own feelings for the sake of ‘civility’.”

28. To LOADED: it is very clear that you want to come. So do! Fuck her and her neediness – all she is thinking about is her sorry ass that is somehow not getting enough attention. And guess what? She never will. She is using your submissiveness selfishly. Fuck her and her manipulating games. Come when you want to.

29. Wait, LOADED only leaks pre-cum when aroused after “several weeks” of orgasm denial? Don’t most people “leak” when they’re aroused most of the time (and I’m not talking about getting a random stiffy when a hottie walks by you on the street). Isn’t that the whole point of pre-cum, to aid in lubrication for sex? Shouldn’t he be doing it every session?

30. @cumster this is definitely my kink, not hers; I *want* to be denied. It’s a little hard to explain why. Ask Numb-Dicked Dude.

    @tora, Dan edited this part a little inexplicably. My original letter said that when in denial, I leak precum “even when only moderately aroused”. So, basically, at the drop of a hat. I *always* leak precum when I get good and turned on, denial or no denial.

31. Oy. I would give SBOOO the benefit of the doubt, just a little. It seems quite possible to me that she was, in fact, open to the idea but learned with experience that she didn’t like it. In which case, the verdict is the same: his needs are stated, they aren’t compatible, it should end.

    If on the other hand she *did* know in advance that she preferred/needed monogamy, then she’s a lying sack as Dan suggested. But I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt on that until proven otherwise.

    On the other hand, hubby’s an idiot. Why on earth did he marry her on the promise of “we’ll explore your needs later to see if I can handle them?” You need to figure that shit out before you tie the knot, and that goes as much for him as for her.

32. SBOO is a sick person, saying she was too busy at work to experiment is such a mindfuckingly obvious lie it makes me sick. She lies to her husband, lies to you in her letter, and probably lies to everyone she knows to get her way. Thank you so much Dan for probably being the first person in her life to not coddle her perpetual victim fetish

33. I would love to hear a response from SBOOO’s husband. Two sides to every story – and her’s is on his side. I bet he’s got stories to tell….

34. Dan do you agree that if you have a non negotiable kink that maybe you hold some responsibility for exploring it with a partner before you marry them? SBOO TOLD his partner before they got married that he wanted an open relationship; but he didn’t EXPLORE it with her.

    She made an attempt it didn’t work. That’s why you have to explore you kinks before you do something as serious as marriage.

    Honestly with your heavy blame on the woman for trying to “trick” a man into marriage you sound a bit like a 1950’s Superman Comic. Don’t be a dick.

35. Ahh the more I think about this the madder it makes me. Not only have you played to thoroughly outdated ideas about marriage but you’ve also played to Mad Men era ideas about sex. That the woman is responsible for it. It SBOO responsibility to make sure she’s compatible to her husband’s kink. Not his responsibility to make sure she is. He didn’t insist on a dry run. He didn’t make it a condition of marriage. Fuck him. They where both irresponsible, yet you lay all the blame on the woman. Get out your head out of the post war era sex relations.

36. Oh, we went even further than SBOOO. We agreed to an open relationship, my wife found a lover who she enjoyed regularly for about 2 years. I had a little more trouble finding a willing outside playmate. Just about the time her relationship petered out I finally found someone, and now that I have a “friend” and she does not, all of a sudden she is not comfortable with this sort of relationship.

37. Poor sbooo’s husband. The man comes into marriage honestly, up front and respectful and no matter what, he’s going to be the bad guy.

    His wife (sbooo) is a lying, skeeball. I have almost no sympathy for her. I hope I never marry a liar like her.

    Perhaps I sound harsh, but marriage and divorce aren’t trivial things. To take what he said so glibly and just go along simply to get married is a terrible thing to do. Of course, she being the woman will have all the sympathy of the world even though she screwed him. If I were a woman, I’d be ashamed of being a member of the same sex as this liar. Of course, I have rapists in my ranks so I have nothing to be all that proud of, but sheesh! What a bitch!

38. LOADED: http://prostatemilking.wordpress.com/ and http://ezinearticles.com/?Step-By-Step-D… both have information about prostate milking and technique. http://www.tpe.com/~altarboy/not90714.ht… is a personal account (not my own). Use the internet! A simple Google search will bring up so much information on it all. Even Wikipedia has an entry on Prostate Massage! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostate_ma…
    As mentioned above, you should make sure gloves are used. Have fun, and enjoy!

39. Yeah, okay, after reading some of the comments, I concur that sbooo’s husband was something of an idiot and is somewhat responsible for this mess, but, seriously, he’s the one who’s going to the real victim here (by society’s closemindedness). I’d call the split about 80% her fault and 20% his fault (maybe 30%). He’s an idiot too. She’s still a bitch.

    Yep, he was a callous prick about the whole thing too, but he’s a man, and we know (at least I do) how men are. Heck, he sounds like me… 🙂

40. FYI, that should be “skeezeball.”

    Dang typos!!!!

41. SBOOO’s husband could not have been any clearer about his sexual wants and practices. Just another example of how denial always comes back to bite you in the ass.

42. Way too harsh on SBOOO.

    Sure she should have tried it but he should have insisted. Even once before they got married would have been enough. That it didn’t happen is both their responsibilities.

    Pretty hateful feedback all round considering two people are now going to have to divorce. The gleeful schadenfreude in response has caused me to lose a lot of respect for this usually engaging and informative column and some of the people who respond to it.

    So much for tolerance, wisdom and respect.

43. Now SBOOO’s next step is to have a baby, because that will change his mind, right?
    Dumbass.

44. Meghan, oolongtea: yeah, that’s kinda what I thought. He married her without making her demonstrate that she was ok with it. He took her “I’m too busy, whaa” at face value. Dumb! People are rarely too busy to do the stuff that’s central to their happiness and fulfillment. People are often too busy to do stuff that they don’t actually want to do.

    But hey, they loved each other, and we all know that love is the deep, prolific spring at the source of that one river in Egypt.

45. Jesus, Dan, maybe she deceived him and herself, and then again maybe she just discovered her own preferences.

    Sounds like she was GGG at first.

    I re-read the letter and couldn’t find positive evidence of deceit or of waiting specifically after getting married, then deliberately *deciding* to change and spring the surprise.

    If she’s someone for whom monogamy works, I’d say that tolerance allows her as much sexual freedom as anyone.

    It can’t be with that particular husband, but differences happen.

46. Way too hard on SBOOO. She tried. I’d get engaged before swinging too, to make sure I wasn’t just a ticket to a swing party (lots of them don’t allow single men). He said, “I’m not monogamous.” So what? It’s not a get out of jail free card – what else did he say? “I never felt like this about anybody before”? Maybe he led her to believe he’d change.

47. While I don’t disagree with your advice, Dan, to be fair to SBOOO, she was willing to experiment. She just didn’t like it. A dozen is a pretty fair trial.

    Also to be fair, the guy married her, too, without “making sure” that swinging would work for them as a couple.

48. Being an open-minded, tolerant, liberal person does not mean that you have to accept anything, within the confines of your own relationship, that personally offends you. Get it? That means it’s a-o.k. to break up with a guy you’re dating because you don’t like his fascination with golden showers, his foot fetish, his closet cross-dressing, his love of gay porn, or, in this case, his desire to have sex outside the relationship. As a matter of fact, you are totally un-hip and pathetically uncool if you force yourself to remain in a relationship where you have to put up with something that completely turns you off. You are also a jerk if you pass unwarranted judgment on adults who engage in consensual relationships that don’t appeal to your tastes, but that doesn’t mean you have to jump into bed with those folks to prove just how progressive you are!

    My point is that SBOOO should take pride in her individual sexual preference and identity (which is monogamous heterosexual), find a compatible sexual partner, and not feel guilty about it! The only regrettable thing is that SBOOO married her husband before she tested their sexual compatibility. So she made a mistake by marrying a guy she isn’t compatible with. And her husband made a mistake by failing to test the waters before marriage. It sounds like they followed their hearts and not their heads, and engaged in a whole hell of a lot of wishful thinking.

    Well, they both messed up, and placing blame doesn’t do much good at this juncture. It doesn’t sound like they have any kids, so parting shouldn’t be too horribly protracted. They need to shake hands and go their separate ways armed with the knowledge that’s it’s not only o.k., but necessary, to demand sexual compatibility, even for fans of traditional monogamy and the missionary position! SBOO will be a million times happier married to a monogamous guy, and her current husband will be loving it when he’s out swinging with his new wife instead of leaving her at home to sulk.

49. I do feel bad for SBOO’s husband, he will probably have to deal with being seen as the bad guy for her lack of insight. And one should point out that it was ‘experimentation’ on her part only, and not on his. Like Dan said, she should have done her exploring before getting into marriage.

50. Looked up the cb 6000… thanks for once again opening my eyes to another beautiful facet of human sexuality!

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