I am a 23-year-old male who
has been in a relationship with a great woman for four years now. She
is an amazing person, and we oftentimes talk about marriage. The issue
is this: I have a foot fetish and she is fully aware of it. She doesn’t
like the idea of me kissing her feet or indulging my fetish in any way.
We have sex quite often, and I’ve always let it slide that she doesn’t
want any part of my fetish. I don’t know what to do, because I’m at a
stage in my sexual growth where I need to experience my fetish. I’m
getting mixed advice from different people and I just want a straight
answer. The sex we have is amazing, but I would enjoy it so much more
if I could act on my desires once in a while.

Sexually Frustrated Fetishist

Here’s a straight answer: Your amazing
girlfriend is an amazingly selfish lover, and I’m amazed that you’ve
put up with her bullshit for as long as you have. A foot fetish is not
uncommon or outrageous; as fetishes go, SFF, yours is the least taxing
for a nonkinky partner. It’s not like you’re into shit or choking or
Christian side hugs. Any amazing woman who truly loved you would regard
indulging you as a no-brainer.

Share time: I have a good friend who’s not
kinky at all—unless you count being gay—and he’s a runner
who goes for long runs every Saturday morning. When he gets home, he
handcuffs his boyfriend to a chair in his kitchen, duct-tapes one of
his sweaty sneakers over the boyfriend’s face, and leaves him there
while he has breakfast. My friend—who came to me for advice when
his boyfriend confessed his fetish—isn’t really into guys with
sneakers duct-taped to their faces. But it gets his lover off, and
isn’t that what lovers are for?

Your lover has had things—she’s had
you—on her terms for four years, SFF, which means you’re going to
have to play the breakup card. It’s the only leverage you have. Tell
her that if she can indulge your fetish—happily and
regularly—and take some pleasure in giving you pleasure, she
might be “the one.” If she can’t or won’t, she obviously isn’t. (Not
that “the one” is anything other than a destructive myth, but for the
sake of winning this argument, go ahead and use it.)

Finally, SFF, don’t let the
girlfriend—or anyone else—tell you that you’re threatening
to end this relationship over something trivial. Sexual fulfillment is
important, particularly if your relationship is exclusive. And the
“triviality” of your kink cuts both ways: If your kink is so trivial,
why not just indulge you then? And in a long-term
relationship—or a marriage—one partner’s sexual selfishness
and another’s sexual frustration rarely prove trivial over the long
haul. They’re more often grounds for divorce.

I am a 35-year-old partnered gay man,
but I’ve been having an online conversation with a married bisexual man
that has become an ongoing game of sexual dares. It’s a safe form of
sexual adventurism for both of us. None of our dares has involved
sexual contact with another person, but some of our dares have begun to
involve other people at the edges. For example, we’ve posted ads to
Craigslist as submissives and responded to some of the replies from
dominant men. None of these interactions with third parties will result
in actual contact. It feels a little like we are exploiting the
“flakes” aspect of Craigslist, i.e., it’s common to hear from someone a
few times after making contact on Craigslist and then never hear from
them again. But it also feels a little like we are using these folks.
Is this expansion of our game to involve other people ethical?

Concerned About Harming Craigslist
Fellas

P.S. This letter is itself part of a
dare. If you publish it and include a dare in the reply, I will have to
fulfill that dare.

The expansion of your game to Craigslist
will annoy those guys on CL who are looking for actual contact, CAHCF,
but as those guys amount to something less than 0.02 percent of the men
trawling Craigslist at any given moment, I wouldn’t worry about it.
Everyone knows that CL is overrun with flakes and game players and
picture collectors; the odds that the “dominant men” you’ve chatted
with on CL are interested in actual contact are pretty damn slim. (Guys
interested in real-time BDSM play are likelier to be lurking on
Recon.com or in your local hardware
store.) So post at will.

P.S. I dare you to go to www.tinyurl.com/ye3otsh and take
the pledge.

I’m a straight guy in my late 20s. I
have a girlfriend of several years whom I live with and I love very
much. I just read your most recent column, in which you used the
acronyms HND (honest nonmonogamous dude) and CPOS (cheating piece of
shit), and it struck a nerve. I have never been an HND; I have in the
past been a CPOS (though not in this relationship). My girlfriend is
lovely, supportive, and generally GGG, and though the sex is good, I
have a significantly higher libido than she does and I would like to
have a little more variety in my sex life. I want to be an HND, but I
don’t know how to broach the subject with the girlfriend without
ruining our relationship. We are very open about our sex life and our
relationship in general, but I think this is probably a “next level”
topic that may not go over very well. How do I bring this up without
screwing up our relationship beyond repair?

Aspiring Honest Nonmonogamous Dude

Based on what you’ve learned about yourself
in past relationships, AHND, i.e., that you’re a CPOS waiting to
happen, I would encourage you to err on the side of screwing up your
current relationship with an honest conversation about your mismatched
libidos and your natural and normal desire for a little variety. Lies,
damn lies, and statistics all demonstrate that, in time, one or the
other or both of you will cheat. Better to toss that out there now,
even at the risk of calmly winding down this relationship before you
revert to form/CPOS, than to see the relationship explode after
someone, most likely you, winds up cheating.

And while we’re on the subject of
cheating…

I suppose I’m obligated to say a few words
about Tiger Woods. First, let’s pretend that Elin Nordegren cheated on
Tiger and that Tiger went after Elin with a golf club. Would Elin be
viewed as the sole transgressor in the marriage then? Probably not. And
second, daily papers and cable news outfits reacted to Tiger’s
“transgressions” by changing the names in the same “Why do powerful men
cheat?” stories they’ve been pimping since Bill Clinton blew a load on
a White House intern. For the millionth time: Men cheat for the same
reasons women cheat, i.e., because they’re bored or horny or
unfulfilled or desperate to see someone else naked for a change. People
cheat because monogamy isn’t natural and we are wired to cheat. That
doesn’t make cheating right, of course; people should honor their
commitments, and blah-de-nine-iron-blah. But we shouldn’t encourage
people to make commitments we all know they’re unlikely to keep. The
end.

AUCTION NOTICE: Want to answer a question or
two in an upcoming column? I’m auctioning off a chance to give advice
in this space to raise money for some worthy charities. Go to
www
.tinyurl.com/SLauction for details and to bid.

Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly
podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.

mail@savagelove.net

179 replies on “Savage Love”

  1. Not everybody is “good at being monogamous”. Some people just don’t particularly want to fuck other people and one does it for them.

    You can cry bullshit all you want, but then you can’t get angry at all the monogamous couples crying bullshit at happy threesomes.

    I guess my point is: different things work for different people, and if you expect the monogamous people to not ridicule non-monogamous people or insist that what they do is unnatural or against their nature then you should perhaps extend the same courtesy to everyone else.

    I love savage love, but im kinda sick seeing my (monogamous) lifestyle disparaged while almost every kink under the sun gets the “if it makes you happy” card. For some people, monogamy is their kink and that should be respected, even if its not yours.

  2. I’m shocked @5 and everyone who’s expressed agreement! A foot fetish is so easy to negotiate and needn’t include toe-sucking or foot-licking if that skeeves the girlfriend out. How much to you want to bet that she’s had a pedicure? I bet her foot-fetishist boyfriend could paint her toenails or give her a foot massage while she reads a magazine and it would be fulfilling his fetish. We should ALL be so lucky.

  3. Having my feet admired verbally, while I wear high heels makes me feel gorgeous, which is a good start to some great sex; having my toes licked or sucked does nothing for me, but it seems to make my boyfriend happy, and that makes me happy, both emotionally and a bit later, sexually. It’s a fairly easy desire to accommodate. And now it’s beginning to be more erotic for me because the associations of the overall context of the sex that specific act occurs in have been so pleasurable. But it wasn’t easy for me to initially go with it. I didn’t feel repulsed so much as self-conscious and foolish. But it meant something important to my bf, so I tried it for his sake. If I had absolutely hated it, after giving it a shot, I would have told him, and I like to think we would have tried a compromise–but I don’t hate it.

    If it isn’t absolutely horrifying to you, I think you should try to please your partner, and at at least see if you can get satisfaction from knowing that you are turning him/her on.

  6. i can’t help wondering how SFF has approached this with his GF. How you talk to someone and persuade someone to try something like this has a big influence on how you feel about trying something, and if you decide to be GGG, how you feel about the act itself. Case in point with me and anal. my first BF was mad to try it, but his method of persuading me ( telling me that women inporn mags did it leading up to what amounted to bribary/blackmail in the end with no real consideration of making it sensuous for me, orgetting me over the inherant, it’s dirty, painful, i’m not that kind of girl issues) left alot to be desired, and when I eventually gave in it was a painful,upsetting and degrading experience which I swore never to repeat. Until the guy i’m with now came along.. he made it sexy and put no pressure on me, starting just stroking down there when going down on me, then on to fingers, mutual fantasies, alot of reassurance, patience, and when we actually tried it, when i was totally ready, alot of lube.. ;0) and you know what, i love it now (and would love to bump into BF no.1 and rub that in his face – it didn’t end well.. ;0) ) so I guess, the message is, with a little patience, maturity (they’re both young by the sounds of it and the confidence to try new things may come with age) and by approaching it very slowly and carefully with definitely no pressure minds can be changed and if you can make it sexy for her in anyway rather than just begging then she might come to love a little foot worship :0)

  7. @7: “BTW AHND I cheated on every girlfriend I ever had until I got a bisexual one. It was like the heavens opened up and I could finally be honest about my non monogamous ways. I’m now married to a woman who likes woman as much as I do.”

    Huh. I guess I didn’t get the memo, because I didn’t know bisexuality automatically equates non-monogamy. I’m pretty sure there are a fair number of bisexuals out there who like having one partner at a time too. I’m also fairly certain that a lot of straight/gay couples are happily openly fucking pieces on the side.

    Good job on implicitly blaming your cheating ways on your girlfriends though. “God, she only likes to fuck men! That means I can’t talk to her or have an open relationship. Must … LIE!”

    Thank God you’re married. Now no other woman has to deal with your asshole ways.

  8. Yes, people are “wired” to sleep with more than one person. We are also “wired” to pee when our bladders get full, no matter the time or place, but we can learn to hold it. I fear that this non-monogamous movement is just an excuse for people to declare themselves hopelessly horny and try to make people who want commitment look like controlling bitches. Monogamy isn’t easy, but it’s possible. And sex, even anonymous drunken bar sex, fosters intimacy. Some people feel that that sort of intimacy should be reserved for one’s partner. Fantasize all you want, face away from (or the back of) your partner, squeeze your eyes shut, and do your damnedest to imagine someone else. Collect a wide variety of sex toys and name them after your favorite stage and screen stars, or even that hotty at work. But maybe you could try to demonstrate your commitment by NOT actually going out and hooking up. It’s not THAT hard. Even the non-monogamous spend 99% of their time NOT having sex with other people, just skip it that last 1% of the time too.

    But even if you choose an open relationship, or non-monogamy, or peeing on furniture or whatever, don’t try to make the monogamous folks out here, or the house trained ones, look like crap for “denying” who they really are.

  9. Thanks for the vid, zenbeatnik. Good luck getting here with no delays! Gotta love winter in MN – it’s the best 7 months of the year.

    That’s so dumb! I, personally, have hugged many, many people and have never touched crotch areas with any of them. You can hug without “accidentally touching crotches,” for Pete’s sake! That’s just so silly. A hug, to me and many others, is not a sexual thing.

    The only time a “side hug” is not completely silly is when you’re posing for a picture.

  10. It is amusing to read the various versions of the following:

    “I have the Thrusting Reeses Monkeys circus show and thong-clad muscle boys in every seven-way I participate in at my uncle’s house, but you monogamy people, you guys are really delusional about how unnatural your professed sexual preferences.”

  11. and what about a “side hug” makes it inherently Christian? The person giving the hug? A really stupid “rap” video done by a bunch of wannabe thuggin’ white boys? Lord help me, I really hope this crap doesn’t catch on. I’m with the girl in the video link; if someone came up to me and tried giving me a “side hug”, I’d be a little weirded out and wonder, dude, what the hell?

    Ah, the internet just gives people more ways to show the world just how dumb they really are.

  12. 59 – I may be mistaken, but I don’t think that’s the argument the “monogamy isn’t natural” people are trying to present.

    It isn’t about denying who you are and whatnot. For me, it is about acknowledging that monogamy is a choice, not an inherent feature of being human. Monogamy is about refraining from sleeping with other people. People in monogamous relationships refrain from cheating in deference to their partner’s feelings. Some people are great at it, and I applaud those who are and to whom it comes easily. To others, it is a struggle to keep from acting on their impulses to sleep with any easy piece of ass offered up to them.

    If it comes easily for you, great! Just don’t get all uppity when others aren’t as great as staying on the monogamy wagon as you are. We’re not saying you’re “denying who you are” by being monogamous (I happen to be successfully monogamous myself, in point of fact), only that you’re better at sticking to you choice to be monogamous than some others.

  13. I think it really sucks that people go on Craigs List and make posts with no intention of following through with them. I always support and agree with Dans advice but totally disagree with him telling CAHCF its ok to waste other peoples time for your own personal amusement. Its bullshit. I realize there will always be creepy trollers and pic collecters out there, but I think encouraging it is just stupid.

  14. On feet: I am kinky in many ways, but I totally don’t “get” the foot thing. The idea of licking someone else’s toes or boots is very nasty to me, as I’m hearing a lot of other people say here, but my experience in the kink community is that *most* people who identify as foot fetishists are the ones who want to be on the giving end, not the recieving end. This guy seems to be the same – he says he wants to do his GF’s feet, not the other way around. Maybe recieving a toe licking would be too gross for some, but that’s not the only option. What kind of person says no to a foot massage? I wish I had a foot fetishist in my life so I could get a happy foot massage every day. Somehow, this seems to fall into the category often pronounced by non-GGG partners: “X would be fine if only you weren’t TURNED ON by it. EEeewww!”

    On monogamy: Saying monogamy isn’t natural isn’t the same as saying it’s wrong or inferior. A desire to perform toe licking isn’t natural either, but there’s nothing wrong with it. When Dan says monogamy isn’t natural, he’s not saying it’s bad to be monogamous if that’s what you want to do. He’s saying it’s bad to assume monogamy to apply to all until proven otherwise, because that is not what our natural instincts and biology suggest. Maybe there is a small percentage of the population that truly wants to be monogamous and finds it easy, but that does not mean that they are instinctually, naturally monogamous. I have yet to meet a person for whom biological drives are non-existant. The desire to be monogamous, and the ease with which one practices monogamy, probably have more to do with social conditioning, upbringing and individual personality than what is natural to our instincts. Monogamous people might want to stay with one partner and be faithful, and some of them may find it comes easily. But if a monogamous person ever finds themselves dreaming or fantasizing about someone else, or feeling attracted to someone else, that’s their natural instinct coming it. They may find it easy to say no to that instinct, but if it exists, that’s telling you what’s natural. Your body and your biology occassionally crave a piece on the side, even if your higher mind finds the idea laughable.

    But regardless of whether you agree with the above statements, the bottom line is that even if monogamy isn’t the norm in the Savage Love column, it’s still the norm in society, and monogamous folks bitching that this column picks on them too much strike me much the same as Christians who whine about being a persecuted minority.

    #52: ‘We are also “wired” to pee when our bladders get full, no matter the time or place, but we can learn to hold it.’

    Have to disagree there. There are many, many animals that don’t just “let it go” whenever and wherever, but will hold it to do it in a particular spot. Even hamsters will pee in the same corner of their cage every time. Are humans less capable than that?

  15. @58 – I took your impression about @7’s comment (“BTW AHND I cheated on every girlfriend I ever had until I got a bisexual one. It was like the heavens opened up and I could finally be honest about my non monogamous ways. I’m now married to a woman who likes woman as much as I do.”) the same way you did at first.

    But then I considered that maybe he just didn’t elaborate enough, and perhaps he meant that they do 3-ways? Or perhaps she, too, wants the opportunity to have 2-ways with other women?

    But yes, your point is well taken: just because someone is bi doesn’t mean that they can’t be monogamous. Just like if a guy likes red heads and brunettes, he’ll automatically be driven to cheat if he can’t marry both.

  16. I’m monoamorous (one “relationship” partner) but polygamous (many sex partners).

    This is much more “natural,” if anyone wants to talk evolutionary biology.

  17. @12: In response to your statement that we men inherit bad karma from our ancestors’ actions:

    I offer, with the most sincere affection, a raised middle finger on behalf of black men everywhere.

    My grandfather’s sins aren’t mine, and you gleefully propose that I should suffer for them. Yet I don’t ask you to suffer for your great-great-grandparents who owned slaves. I don’t ask you to grovel in apology for the fact that your grandparents called mine the N-word, wouldn’t let them drink from the white folks’ fountain, or whatever they did. And you KNOW they did something.

    So you should be very, very careful what you wish for. There’s no way you haven’t reaped the benefits of someone else’s suffering and injustice. That’s fine, we all have. Social justice comes from being aware of that and acting on it.

    But getting off on the hate-fantasy of making other human beings grovel, people who haven’t done anything wrong, just because they’re the wrong gender? And then running your mouth off about that fantasy in public? That’s got nothing to do with social justice…and it’s some SERIOUSLY bad karma.

  19. Tiger appears to be a sex addict… not a run of the mill human who may find it tricky to not be attracted to someone else everyone once in a while… but someone whose ego and self esteem lend itself to hurtful, destructive behavior.

  20. It never ceases to amaze me the large percentage of the public who are idiotic enough to make athletes their role-models. And quite frankly, I would question if Tiger Woods is an athlete in the true sense of the word – the man hits little balls with a stick :-/

    Can someone please explain that to me? You are going to put men and women, who are successful simply for having innate (and later honed) physical prowess, as role models for yourselves and children? Why? They aren’t spiritually, morally or intellectually superior in any way shape of form. They just happen to be physically gifted. And while I fully recognize that I can’t do what they do, I would never think to put them on a pedestal for mere physical prowess. It doesn’t make any sense.

    I mean take a look at ancient history. Who do we remember? Aristotle, Plato, Tolstoy etc. They are revered for displays of some combination of spiritual, moral or intellectual ability, are they not? Perhaps I am less well educated than I think myself to be, but do we hold any athletes from ancient history in such high regard? I would love to get some information on that, as I am not aware of any.

    Tiger Woods doesn’t owe anyone but his family and friends, a bloody thing. Tiger Woods didn’t earn his fortune and fame because of YOU. He earned it because he is gifted at golf. Corporate entities decided to capital on this gift, they presented an image of him to best capitalize on said gift, and now YOU think he owes you anything? The hubris. YOU buy into a corporate manufactured image and then cry foul when all is not what it seems to be? The idiocy.

    It won’t happen, but I so hope Tiger Woods would come out and say “Screw you lot, this is my problem; I’ll deal with as I see fit, and the rest of you can plain bugger off”. Bottom line, it is highly unlikely Elin will leave him and even if she did, she signed an iron-clad prenuptial agreement (as declared in the NYT). Infidelity is not the end of the world, and this American pastime of pretending it is, is oh so very childish. Grow up!

  21. @70

    Sex addiction is a myth created by our sex-negative culture to pathologize people who won’t allow their libidos to be controlled by social proscription. Tiger is a very wealthy and famous man who receives frequent offers for sex from extremely attractive women. He is neither a role model nor a morally bankrupt lecher…. he’s just bad at covering his tracks.

    Most importantly, he’s a fallible person who made some mistakes and is doing his penance on a public stage. He’s having a bad month, and the idiots who are uninvolved in his life yet still care about this will find some other shiny object to look at soon enough.

  22. Hey @15 — what makes you think NPR is any better? Last year I happened to have lunch with one of their reporters (whom I won’t name here) and told him I stopped going to them for news when they were all over the story about Anna Nicole Smith’s overdose and failed to even mention the introduction of a bill in the House of Reps. to impeach Dick Cheney. He gave me some lame excuse about that story “not having legs” and the public not being interested. That, while polls showed that a majority of the US public supported impeachment if it could be shown that Bush & Cheney lied about the decision to invade Iraq. But hey, why should the public be interested in things NPR won’t tell us about?

  23. It seems a fairly unenlightened attitude, from an evolutionary psychology POV, to suggest that men and women basically cheat for the same reasons.

  25. Aloha y’all,

    Take another dare, and google “no to stupak petition.” Sign the petition saying you protect and respect women’s legal right to choice, and no health care policy has the right to change that choice!

  26. @66: Although, I gotta say, his comment still rubs me the wrong way in how he says that he couldn’t be honest with any of the straight women he dated (he could only “finally be honest” with his bisexual girlfriend).

    He could have been honest … with himself. A straight woman doesn’t want you fucking other women? She doesn’t want to be in three-ways with you? Dump her. Don’t stick around and cheat on her. And he did this at least twice (“every girlfriend I ever had”).

  27. I’m pretty sure Dan’s use of the term “natural” was not to imply that monogamy is unnatural, or that it doesn’t occur, but that it’s fallacious to assume that monogamy is the natural state of being for all humans.

    Which is true. But god you monogamous people are touchy, maybe you need to get laid.

  28. @72, sex addiction is real, but it’s not what people seem to think it is. I was a sex addict for many years and it wasn’t about having fun or getting off. Sex was, back in the day, about conquest and power, not about physical sensations, and sometimes the mind reverts the same way you can smell your dead grandma’s perfume and for a moment feel like a little kid again. Sex was about seeing if I could get that guy who was out of my league to do me, if I could get the happily married and monogamous guy to cheat with me, if I could score the dude my hotter and skinnier friend was after. It was a way to feel like I was sexy and attractive. Like when normal people collect free drinks or phone numbers, only it somehow didn’t work unless there was sex. I think Tiger is in constant need of having his ego stroked, rather than his dick. face it, the dude looks like a human version of Peanut, the Jeff Dunham puppet. ANd his father trained him like a pet monkey until he got rich and bought him a house. He’s a great golfer but he’s a fugly guy. But, he married a model and now seems to need hot young girls to do him constantly. It’s not about natural urges or variety but about needing to be told, and shown, that he’s hot and worthy. He’s the school nerd trying to get the prom queen, but he has to do it every time he sees a prom queen.

  29. I gotta agree with #5. That’s a very reasonable approach. I think we’re missing the girl’s side of this discussion, and that before we present her a forced choice… do it or else I’ll break off the relationship… we should hear exactly what it is that he wants done, and what it means to her to indulge him. For example, does he just want to massage her feet? What the problem?
    Or is he demanding that she walk nude except for high heels on his chest while they pose in the front window, and this will replace all the close cuddling sensual activities that SHE prefers… There’s a matter of degree here!

  30. chi_type@14-you obviously haven’t been reading Dan for very long. I have never heard or read him saying that allowing an extra person into your relationship is required to be GGG. In fact, I know he has said that threesomes or openness are above and beyond the call of duty for a GGG partner, along with poo play (and other stuff I can’t remember.)

    So many people seem to be getting their panties in a wad over the monogamy statement. I know in many places Dan has said that monogamy is possible, though it’s not easy. For those few of you who find it “easy”, you’re lucky. Many people find it difficult, even when they achieve it.

    In evolutionary terms, women are “hard wired” to be more selective, since the consequences for her were much more lasting than for the male. The last half-century or so of effective birth control are not nearly enough to undo the millennia of hard-wiring.

    So perhaps it is “easier” for women to be monogamous. That doesn’t mean women don’t cheat, only that they may find it “easier” to be monogamous than men do because of how we are wired.

  32. Hmm, Mr. Savage. Perhaps you’ve become tainted in your profession, this happens. The entire human population is not wired to cheat. Your extreme generalization is pathetic; but, I realize many humans are also pathetic. And … your podcast exists for this reason. Cheers.

  33. dear #5 (Fairness goes both ways):

    I believe what you’re describing is called “Irreconcilable differences.” Or, that’s what it WILL be called when they hit divorce court.

  34. You know, I haven’t had my toes sucked in a long time (because they’re stuck in shoes all day… the prep time alone, sheeesh!) but it feels pretty awesome. I think if this young girl made a decision to really give it a try, and not bring all the “if I do this, I’m demeaned” Gloria Allred crap into bed with them, she’d like it. How bout starting in the tub? He could scrub em up, foot massage, oil up her feet and then… foot job? Sounds fine to me.

    Oh, and by the way, 57, UK Girlie? That was friggin HOT! I think you should email it to boyfriend #1. But I have a question… how DO you deal with the smell of anal? Anyone?

  35. @82, sure, we shouldn’t necessarily do everything we’re wired to do. But to either A)deny that we’re wired certain ways, or B) pretend it’s easy to ignore said wiring are both futile and ignorant.

  37. @87 – here you go- Chrisian Side Hug

    According to Stuff Christians Like, there’s no “exact scripture reference” banning normal hugging. But the Side-Hug does significantly lower the “risk of two crotches touching,” which has got to be in the Bible somewhere. Here’s how you do it:

    Instead of face to face, you go side to side, putting your arm around the person and your hip against their’s. Still having a hard time mastering it? Pretend you’re taking a photo and you’re both looking at the camera together. The side hug, or A frame as it is also called, is safe for the whole family, friendly and above all holy

  38. Thank you Kevin for your more nuanced response. So for Gloria I’ll clarify. I’m 40 years old now and have been a serial monogamist my whole life. I liked being in a relationship but I also liked strange. So yes, I was not honest with my relationships and yes I was an asshole but we’re also talking about my 20’s. Once I found a bisexual girlfriend WHO DIDN’T MIND SHARING ME, the heavens opened up. I realized that here was a whole different way of approaching a relationship. One in which I could be honest with my significant other and not have to cheat. Completely changed my life and now I’m married to an incredible woman who I can be honest with. BTW I thought it went without saying that just because you’re bisexual doesn’t mean you’re non-monogomous. My bad.

  39. It’s not about being “good” at being monogamous, whatever that means. It’s about that being my natural state. Why does mentioning that make some people infer some sort of butthurtedness on my part?
    My only butthurtedness in this comes from people trying to tell other people what is natural for them is not natural – self-righteous monos spouting off at polys, undeservedly smug polys spouting off at monos – why? It’s stupid.
    If it’s natural for you, if it’s what feels right, if it is what comes naturally for you, if it’s not hurting anyone, what’s not natural about it? Just because someone finds they’re not naturally monogamous doesn’t mean we don’t exist. That’s a rather ignorant assumption.
    I have to roll my eyes at the overly reactive who assume someone being calmly, but firmly, what they are has anything to do with being overly sensitive. Stop projecting.
    I’m pleased and happy for my poly or non-monogamous friends when they find happiness, and I expect the same care from them. *shrugs* For me, when I’m in love, I am not interested in actually having sex with anyone else – or forming the same romantic bond with anyone else – but my partner. It’s just not there for me. Why would someone assume that I would only get irritated by people telling me I’m unnatural if I was too sensitive, vs just wanting people to extend to me the same respect I extend to them?
    Yep, as a bi woman, I got tired of being told I didn’t exist, and I feel the same as a naturally monogamous human. What’s wrong with speaking up about other people’s strident ignorance?

  40. good (vanilla) discussion!

    dan, would love to read your guide to monogomy/ non-monogomy — say in book form — with advice for every kink (and successfully mixing every combination of monogomy/non-monogomy tendencies). we need a sensitive how-to guide us these days. potential massive seller and good happy holiday read i say…

  41. With all the tolerance flying around for every motherfucking thing under the sun, why so little tolerance for those who are most happy being monogamous? Do you really not think they’re out there because you haven’t personally encountered them? I absolutely agree that an awful lot of people aren’t happy being monogamous and so should never make commitments to be so; but some people really really are. And I’m tired of the old “we are hardwired to do it” rationale for everything from war to rape to imperialism to horndoginess. We’re hardwired to shit in the backyard, but most of us aren’t comfortable doing it unless it’s our inalienable fetish. Sexuality is a product of culture, the eggheads are saying these days, and monogamy’s not being sold by anyone cool. But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel good, and natural, to lots of people

  42. I thought the Christian Side Hug(TM) was to avoid breast-to-chest contact between non-married men and women? My pastor does the side hug with women, not men (he’s male).

    There was a guy who was a full-frontal hugger, and it made me really uncomfortable, like a type of frottage or something. Kind of like Jim Gaffigan’s joke about it being wrong to hug your mother-in-law and say “OOOOoo, that feels SOOO right!”

  43. With everyone commenting about how they’d be disgusted to be on the recieving end of a full-on foot fetish…let me say that I’m in a LTR and I’m a female. I would KILL to be the object of a man’s foot fetish. My current guy just isn’t into feet-and it sucks. I’ll ask him to rub my feet and he’ll do it for a little bit, but it never turns sexual. I was with a guy that would suck my toes and it drives me wild. If I could be w/ a guy that was turned on by my feet-and wanted me to get pedis-wow…that would be amazing. It feels SO good. But I agree w/ another poster…the only time it would make me uncomfortable is if my feet weren’t squeaky clean. But I’m GGG so if he (or she) was into it, then I am too!

  44. Also, I should’ve never clicked on the video about Christian side hugs. Now that IS some silly shit. And even worse, its stuck in my head. RRRRRRR (LOL)

  45. Dan’s observations on the unnaturalness of monogamy have grown tiresome with time but not nearly as tiresome as the huge emphasis on the Massive Importance of sexsexsex. Or more specifically, the apparent Manifest Destiny of all human beings to have hot perfect sex all the timetimetime.

    I’m no prude. I’ve gone through very kinky phases, fairly slutty phases, monogamous phases, honestly non-monogamous phases and even CPOS phases. I’ve been in a masturbation “phase” since I was 12. Currently sex with others is not that important to me. It’ just sex for god’s sake.

    On another note… I think the twin conceits of “natural” and “unnatural” are not particularly applicable to beings that have transcended, EVOLVED, as far as humans have beyond the basic life model of stay-alive-and-reproduce. We have that whole existential dilemma to consider:

    Philosophy. Philanthropy. Ambition. Integrity. Morality. Ambiguity. Cruelty. Rationality. The ability to produce plastic from natural materials. Awareness of impending doom (death). Hatred. Love. Ennui and so on….

    What’s natural/unnatural got to do, got to do with it?

  46. My feet are pretty gross right now, so you could persuade me with a pedicure. Good idea, #11!

    Maybe she thinks her feet/feet in general are gross. The thought worshiping makes her uncomfortable/confuses her But maybe she should try it, JUST ONCE.

    It doesn’t matter if foot worshiping is vanilla or kinky. That isn’t the point. There could be a myriad of reasons why she isn’t into it. So what, you have to feel comfortable doing all things “vanilla”? (what is vanilla, anyway, really?)

    But yes. Try it. Let him do it. Once. You may like it 🙂

  47. I absolutely fucking loathe when people say “monogamy isn’t natural”. Fuck you. If it weren’t natural we wouldn’t be doing it and neither would any of the other species of animals who mate for life. Just because some people can’t keep their legs crossed doesn’t mean it’s natural to cheat; it means that they can’t keep their dick in their drawers. If people want to be poly or swingers, that’s fine, don’t care, not my life. But saying that my desire to be with one person forever is unnatural is frankly downright insulting.

  48. Charlie at #59, I’d much rather have my partner go out and fuck other women (and we’re happily non-mono, so he does) than go to such great lengths not to focus on the fact that, when he’s fucking me, he’s fucking ME. Fantasy can be fun, but when you “face away from (or the back of) your partner, squeeze your eyes shut, and do your damnedest to imagine someone else,” that doesn’t do shit-all to demonstrate your emotional intimacy or your commitment.

  49. Yawgmoth, very few animals actually mate for life, and a lot of the species that we used to think were monogamous actually turn out to be very much not. Cheating is rampant in the animal kingdom and is natural.

    Besides, why do you care so much if monogamy is natural or not? Natural doesn’t mean good, or moral, or what-not – plenty of bad things are natural, and plenty of good things aren’t. If you like monogamy, find a willing partner and go for it.

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