I am a queer lady in my 20s. My boyfriend and I recently discovered that we are both into BDSM. We started with some light bondage and spanking, added some role-play, and are moving toward some heavier stuff. I’ve spent some time reading online BDSM erotica, and here’s what’s stressing me out: I tend to gravitate toward stories that include age play (underage girls with older men). I think pedophilia is wrong and disgusting, yet I get off on the stories. I can’t stop feeling like I’m a huge pervert. Also, what is a good way to introduce the idea of age play to my boyfriend without sounding perverted? Is age play perverted?
Feeling Like A Pervert
You’re already doing BDSM, FLAP, so it’s a little late to start concerning yourself with what is and isn’t perverted. I’m not saying that BDSM is perverted—it isn’t in my opinion—but the kind of people who obsess about the supposed perversity of other people’s sex lives regard BDSM as hella perverted, as the kids were only too recently saying.
All you need to concern yourself with, FLAP, is consent—obtaining consent before anything goes down, maintaining a state of consent once things get going. So are you a consenting adult, FLAP? Is your partner a consenting adult? Yes and yes? Then you’re free to do whatever the hell you want in the sack—and that includes pretending that one of you isn’t a consenting adult.
Adults can safely and ethically explore through fantasy and role-play things that we wouldn’t (because they’re wrong) or couldn’t (because they’re impossible) do in reality. A nice girl who would never dream of ever actually owning a human being can pretend to own a sex slave without having to forfeit her “nice girl” status; a decent guy who would never commit the crime of rape can pretend to rape a partner with rape fantasies without having to forfeit his “decent guy” status. The same goes for age play, FLAP.
As for telling the boyfriend about it without sounding perverted: Sorry, FLAP, can’t help you there. It’s going to sound perverted—and sick and wrong—because the scenario you want to explore is all kinds of sick and wrong. Just own it when you tell him about it: “I know this is crazy and fucked up, but these stories really turn me on.”
My best friend is a good-looking, professional young man with a conservative sensibility and traditional values. Recently, one of his married coworkers (a bright and sexy young lady) has been pursuing him. I’ve met her personally, and she’s a very cool girl. Confident, socially graceful, and fun. She is currently in the process of legally separating from her husband, who over the last year or so has completely cut her off sexually.
My roommate wants no part of a sexual relationship with her while she’s married. Even if she does separate, he is worried about being a rebound. I’ve told him to wait until she’s separated, but then to go for it. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? And she’s a cool person who will be scooped up by some lucky guy if he doesn’t move now.
Dude In Seattle
Let me see if I follow: If this woman were unmarried and unattached, DIS, your friend with the “traditional values” wouldn’t have any problem fucking her? A point of order: When did premarital sex become a “traditional value”?
I don’t care if your buddy fucks this woman or not. (He should; lots of rebounds turn into wonderful and lasting relationships.) I’m just curious how we got to the point where anything goes—premarital sex, oral and anal sodomy, multiple marriages (hey there, Karl Rove!)—for heterosexuals and nothing is a violation of “traditional values” so long as the fornicators are straight. An unmarried straight man with shit on his dick and three different women’s pubes in his mouth can claim to have a “conservative sensibility and traditional values”—how’d that happen?
As for your friend, DIS, I’ve known a few guys who went on and on about how attracted they were to a woman and how much they wanted to fuck all of her orifices and eat her pussy until she turned inside out but they couldn’t have hot, premarital, heterosexual sex due to some technicality that violated their traditional values. All of those guys eventually came out. Just sayin’.
Could you wax philosophical for a paragraph or two, Dan, about a column from a few weeks ago? I want to know what makes Sexually Frustrated Fetishist’s preference to involve feet in sex morally preferable to his partner’s preference not to do so? Why is her insistence on her preference “selfish” while his insistence merely reflects his “sexual fulfillment”? More generally, what’s the reason for your tendency to side with the person who wants to do x, even to the point of encouraging infidelity, over the person who doesn’t want to do x, when the more intuitive answer might be “Gee, maybe you guys just aren’t sexually compatible?”
Skeptical Erotic Compromises
I don’t always side with the kinksters, SEC. I’ve sided with women who didn’t want to cuckold their husbands and with straight guys who didn’t want to have same-sex contact during a threesome. I encourage people to be good, giving, and game (GGG), which only requires us, as I’ve explained, to consider our partner’s reasonable sexual requests. I’ve never suggested that any and all sexual requests must be fulfilled.
I’ll wax now: The odds that any one of us will wind up with a partner whose sexual interests align perfectly with our own are essentially zero. Since no two people are a perfect fit sexually, SEC, both partners must engage in a good-faith give-and-take to craft a mutually satisfying sexual repertoire that doesn’t leave either person feeling resentful or badly used. Does everyone get everything they want? Nope. But each of us has a right to put our needs out there and a concurrent responsibility to meet our partner’s needs if at all possible. And each of us should have the sense to pull the plug when the sexual disconnect is too great.
As to what makes SFF’s request reasonable and his girlfriend’s refusal unreasonable, SEC, it comes down to just what is being asked of the nonkinky partner. All SFF is asking is for his girlfriend to kick off her shoes and allow him to treat her feet the way another man might treat his girlfriend’s breasts. It’s not too much to ask, and an unselfish lover wouldn’t regard it as too much to give.
HEY, EVERYBODY: I’m hosting a special performance of Xanadu at the Paramount Theatre on January 20. It’s a fundraiser for Equal Rights Washington. Benefit tickets include seating on the main floor and admission to a special afterparty at Chapel with cast members following the performance. Trouble Dicso’s H.M.A. will be DJing, and there will be appetizers and a no-host bar. Tickets are $99, and every cent goes to ERW. To purchase tickets, go to thestranger
.com/XanaduTix. Xanadu is a great (and sexy) musical, ERW is a great organization—please join me at the show!
So, I guess this is the new column format now? A couple of new letters (one of which is an uninteresting letter about a long ago uninteresting letter) and then a letter we already read the week before in the blog. Just checking.
Your response to DIS was right on. I had a friend who used to talk about all the dirty things he would do to a mutual friend if she wasn’t married. We laughed about it later with our dicks in each others mouths.
Dan, I’m going to Xanadu on the 21st! I wish I’d known about this sooner. I’ll have to make a donation on my own.
As to @1 (and @2, so awesome when someone points out they’re first!):
That’s the whole point of a blog; a blog is not a finished record. The whole point of a blog is to be an informal record of the stuff that’s going to go into the publication.
I don’t see any reason that a “Letter of the Day” can’t make it into the print column. ‘Sides, it’s the New Year — cut our Dan some slack!
with respect to the last letter, what I just cannot understand is if the gal finds feet just oh-so gross and disgusting, wouldn’t it be a turn off to have to put your partner in that position knowing full well they’re not enjoying it? Even if they are faking it, the instigator would know.
My husband hates feet, though I work long hours on my feet and could use some TLC on my soles at night, but he is so grossed out by them I don’t ask him to rub them but if I do, I get a hum and a sigh and a half assed foot rub that he ends up hating and in turn makes my feet feel absolutely no better…. so I spend his money on getting pedicures… not that I am implying that this guy spend his girlfriends money on hookers with foot fetishes… but there has to be a limit somewhere
Huh, about DIS. His best friend doesn’t have to be gay. Maybe he’s just not all that interested. Just because DIS thinks his friend should be interested in this woman, for sex, for a relationship, for anything else, doesn’t mean that he’s interested. “I don’t want to deal with the marriage drama” is the kind of excuse people give their friends all the time, when they think their friends should shut up about how they REALLY SHOULD BE INTERESTED in someone they’re just…not.
Huh, about DIS. His best friend doesn’t have to be gay. Maybe he’s just not all that interested. Just because DIS thinks his friend should be interested in this woman, for sex, for a relationship, for anything else, doesn’t mean that he’s interested. “I don’t want to deal with the marriage drama” is the kind of excuse people give their friends all the time, when they think their friends should shut up about how they REALLY SHOULD BE INTERESTED in someone they’re just…not.
OK, perhaps I’m new, but what the hell does “I am a queer lady in my 20s. My boyfriend…” mean???
“Queer lady” leads me to believe a girlfriend would be the problem. Not to quibble, but what the hell is that about?
As to the last letter; we are each responsible for what we agree to do. When my wife and I began dating, I once allowed her to slap my ass purple. I hadn’t ever been in a spanking situation before; I wanted to be GGG and I was. It has not happened since. She may enjoy spanking play, but I don’t. We have plenty of other kinks we enjoy together that some random thing or another that we don’t both enjoy isn’t that big of a deal to occasionally forgo or indulge if we both end up happy. THAT is the ultimate point…isn’t it?
@10 – how about bi? Pretty obvious…
#11…Then why did she say “queer”? I’m sorry but I just don’t find it that obvious and I can’t help to be offended when someone in an obviously straight relationship says “I’m really queer except for this…” BS. Bi is bi and fine, just say so.
So, no, really not “pretty obvious” but thanks.
@7:
I hear ya loud & clear. If your hubby is _truly_ GGG, then he should pay for your pedicures.
Just sayin’.
@12 For a while now, queer has been used to mean “not straight”. What if shes into men and transmen, and their respective original plumbing (penis, vagina). Does that still mean shes bi? No, shes not into women. And being into transguy pussies means she’s not exactly straight. So what is she? Queer! That’s why its such a useful term. (I am not saying this is her situation, its just a hypothetical to help explain the word usage)
@12
Queer is a catch all phrase for “not straight.” It doesn’t necessarily mean “bi.” It could mean her attraction to men and women is not split 50/50. It could mean “pansexual,” meaning she likes all genders, including female-to-male transsexuals, genderqueers, or male-to-female transsexuals. Maybe she ONLY likes men and female to male transsexals but NOT women or male-to-female transsexuals.
Queer is a lot easier and more polite to say than, “I’m not straight, but my exact preferences are too convoluted for me to bother explaining and it’s none of your business anyway.”
Queer people in hetero-relationships never default to straight. Being queer is part of their identity, their politics, and their aesthetic. For all you know, this lady looks like a butch dyke with a boyfriend.
@14
*high five*
Oh, also, the word “bi” generally erroneously assumes that a true gender binary exists.
Ha, right back at you superduperficial.
@FLAP: Careful with those age-play stories. Child pornography has different definitions in different places. People have been charged with production for writing fic, and possession for reading it. Just sayin’ check your local laws, not sayin’ I agree with them.
@10: When did ‘queer’ come to mean ‘homosexual’? Wikipedia says “Queer has traditionally meant odd or unusual, though modern use often pertains to LGBT (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, intersex and non-normative heterosexual) people…”
In short, I’ve always taken ‘queer’ to mean ‘either fairly kinky in some way or not completely straight’.
And I stand (sit) educated. Apparently, I AM new as it comes to the definition and common usage of the word “queer” was not what I understood it to be.
Thank you for the mostly just wanting to educate as opposed to berate responses. I now get it and thank you.
So people keep complaining about Savage recycling letters from his blog, using them as part of the weekly column. Think about it. Most people don’t read his blog. This advice column has a huge readership throughout the nation, in a variety of publications. If a letter and his response have a message he really needs to get out there, of course he should put it in the column and not just the blog. He isn’t being lazy. He is being smart, and reaching out to his large reader base with his important messages, not just the people who check out his blog every day.
According to Bill Bryson’s research in the book “Made in America,” premarital sex was a Puritan virtue (or at least, no big deal) since “bundling” was apparently a less involved affair than they made it in “The Patriot.” Essentially, if the couple liked each other after a night, swell, they got married. Likewise if the girl turned up pregnant. Otherwise, no harm no foul. So weird, but “traditional” in the sense that Puritans have shaped so much of America’s warped view of sexuality. Let’s hear it for traditional premarital sex!
“Xanadu is a great (and sexy) musical”
Now that’s perverted!
olechka: Our posts were so similar it’s scary. I posted mine, then saw yours and was kind of stunned. I swear to god, I didn’t plagiarize. ;p
<3,
Queer girl writing from personal experience.
@7 I think b/c most people don’t find feet so horribly gross, so absolutely disgusting, so completely puke inducing that they couldn’t touch feet or have their feet touched. I’m sure there’s probably someone out there that is so horribly grossed out by nipples that just can’t bear to even look at them let alone suck and caress them without bringing up their lunch but those people are very rare. If SFF’s girlfriend is one of the rare people who just absolutely can not stomach her feet even being touched without tossing the ol’ cookies then they should probably break up.
I’m not so sure DIS’s roomate is gay either, just cause he wants no part of a woman who’s throwing herself at him. What I’m wondering is why a roomate goes to all the trouble of writing about his buddy’s potential squeeze? Either he wins the award for Most Devoted Wingman EVER or something’s off. If he thinks she’s so awesome, why doesn’t DIS go for her himself?
BTW, Binky @3 for the win!
And about the foot girl… as I recall, it wasn’t that she thought feet were gross, just that she thought foot worship was repulsive. She’s probably very young… think back to when you were first performed a sexual act you were raised to find repulsive. How many loved fellatio first time out? (Dan, will you weigh in on that one?) This is where being giving and game comes in… she needs to commit to one try to please her man. Have a coupla glasses of wine, wear something sexy (preferably shoes). maybe if she wore a blindfold she’d relax more, feel freer to enjoy, and not locked into the bullshit christian values she was probably saddled with. After that, if she hates it, well, damn it, she gave it the old college try, and he should drop it or move on. That’s what the third G is all about.
@10, that was my reading of it, too. Queer girl, with a BF? The responses were (mostly) helpful and I learned something.
Living 1500 miles from any liberal metropolitian area means a lot of terminology and styles take longer to get here. Alas, civil rights, too.
I completely agree w/#26. Why is this guy even writing this letter in the first place??
It reminds me of the old jokes where a guy talks to a shrink, saying “I have a friend who has this problem…” Uh-huh.
As a divorced man, I identify with the guy that doesn’t want to be with a woman who’s married. Having been through the process of leaving, separating, divorcing and recreating my life, I see it as a political statement that I don’t have relationships with women who aren’t courageous enough to leave their husbands. Of course, I wouldn’t rule out a one-night stand, but I wouldn’t start an actual relationship with someone that I actually liked unless they were available to me in every way. (Of course, the writer’s “roomate” probably isn’t thinking in political terms, he’s just worried about social conventions.)
Ever notice how its always “my friend/roomate/cousin” that asks the “why are they such a coward” questions? Just like the “other person” who always calls Car Talk with the question about the Plymouth Reliant!
Is there something new going down in the world of foot worship these days that I was unaware of?
Honestly, WTF- last time I had a foot fetish BF it was like having my own personal foot masseur who also got off on it…free awesome foot rubs and a get-out-of-BJs-free-card FTW! woot! It’s not he’s asking her to sick HIS toes…
Nyker, quit busting Dan’s nuts.
@19: Just one more note about queer – queerness and kinkiness are two separate things.
They can certainly overlap, but generally speaking, being queer is simply about having a non-heterosexual, non-heteronormative sexuality. Being kinky has to do more specifically with what sexual acts interest people. There are many queer non-kinky folk and many kinky non-queer folk. Though as a kinky queer person, I certainly wish that more people were both!
@31: Ten points for the Car Talk reference!
Amen. As a christian, it drives me nuts when people dress their homophobia up as “christian” or “traditional” values. Are there some legitimate questions about the relationship of the bible to homosexuality? Sure. But most of those catfuckers are just afraid of what they don’t understand/refuse to recognize in themselves.
“I get a hum and a sigh and a half assed foot rub that he ends up hating and in turn makes my feet feel absolutely no better”
I guess your frequent, enthusiastic blowjobs done regularly were not enough to convince him to rub your feet afterwards or before. Hmm? What is that? You did not give him a BJ for every footrub?
Ahem. Well. I suppose he could just spend your money on sex workers to get them, right? No biggie.
Oh, and guys, ease up on any young teen males who may exhibit some homophobia and anxiety about gays. It is a stage for most heterosexual adolescents to ardently reject homosexuality as part of creating their heterosexual sexual identity.
And being straight, seventeen and having some 43 year old gay guy buffoonishly hit on you for the first time is off-putting for guys, just like it is off-putting for straight teen gals who deal with creepy older dudes. Teens are often just grossed out by that experience, and there is no way around it.
Simply explaining (without drama) to young guys they should moderate any innate revulsion at the idea and not get all worked up about it when it happens. Tell them to treat gays much like uninterested teen women should treat creepy males the teen women do not find attractive: politely, firmly, confidently, and without contempt so long as the initial rebuff is accepted by the pursuer with grace and courtesy. If the pursuer takes things even one fraction of an inch past the courtesy line, threaten to go cop on the predatory fucker, gay or straight.
That is for younger guys only. After the mid-twenties, if a guy is still “dirty faggot” this and “homo cocksucker” that or all about “Yahweh’s vengence” when the topic of a gay guy comes up, well, methinks the lady doth protest too much.
Having played boy and having played daddy, I think FLAP should tell her partner that the whole concept is turning her on. For all we know, the partner may be thinking the same thing.
But that’s not the real reason I am posting a comment. I just want to say that the illustration by Joe Newton made my day!
@35 quick question for clarification–so, say I’m into MtF crossdressers who are mostly fetishists as opposed to wanting to take hormones and get breast implants–does that make me kinky or queer?
I will say one thing it makes me is lucky! 🙂
@39 It’s 2010, can’t you be both? 😉
@37 The first time I got hit on by a guy I was 14 and found the experience interesting and rather flattering. It’s really not OK for them (young straight dudes) to be freaked out or uncomfortable because as you said, it’s the same as being hit on by a girl who they aren’t interested in.
Are there really any sins committed in fantasizing anything? It’s only when crossing that sick fantasy over into reality that it becomes sick and wrong.
I guess the public perception is that if people fantasize something or someone or some act, they really want that thing, that person, that act to actually happen. And in some cases maybe he or she does. But if he/she doesn’t follow it through to fruition, the only thing that person may be guilty of, then, is possibly being a Triple-A creep.
On another note, happy new year to you and yours, Dan!
Are there really any sins committed in fantasizing anything? It’s only when crossing that sick fantasy over into reality that it becomes sick and wrong.
I guess the public perception is that if people fantasize something or someone or some act, they really want that thing, that person, that act to actually happen. And in some cases maybe he or she does. But if he/she doesn’t follow it through to fruition, the only thing that person may be guilty of, then, is possibly being a Triple-A creep.
On another note, happy new year to you and yours, Dan!
Are there really any sins committed in fantasizing anything? It’s only when crossing that sick fantasy over into reality that it becomes sick and wrong.
I guess the public perception is that if people fantasize something or someone or some act, they really want that thing, that person, that act to actually happen. And in some cases maybe he or she does. But if he/she doesn’t follow it through to fruition, the only thing that person may be guilty of, then, is possibly being a Triple-A creep.
On another note, happy new year to you and yours, Dan!
Server issue today? Pardonnez-moi for the triple post!
“People have been charged with production [of child pornography] for writing fic, and possession for reading it.”
In the United States? I find it unlikely that survived an attorney’s first mention of the First Amendment. Hell, the Supreme Court even protects the production and possession of sexual depictions of children that are made digitally, so long as no actual children were involved in the production. The one thing you CAN’T do is to either offer or ask for real child porn (this is considered pandering and is not constitutionally protected), even if what you end up giving or being given is the computer-generated fake stuff.
Re: the foot fetish guy, it wasn’t that his desire to worship her feet outweighed her desire to not have it done. It was that she refused to try it, & the status quo was that her preferences were the *only* deciding factor. That’s not a compromise.
I stand by the right of anyone to self-identify as “queer” for almost any reason, as long as they do so with the understanding that at present, most people consider it a synonym for “bi or gay”.
What I was actually more curious about is why this was mentioned at all in such a short letter, given that it didn’t really have any bearing on the question.
For example, starting the question like:
“I am a married lady in my 20s.” would imply that Dan ought to consider the fact that she’s married and the duration of the marriage when answering the question.
But stating that you’re queer in this context would be like stating your Judiasm while asking for advice on interpreting the New Testament – irrelevent at best, but more likely unnecessarily confusing.
Bauhaus I, The Stranger is now using a third-party company for its reader comments feature. If your comment doesn’t show up right away, don’t re-post it. Chances are, if you refresh the comments page after a couple of minutes, your comment will be there.
#37, defining heterosexuality as “rejecting homosexuality” is just as problematic as defining masculinity as “rejecting femininity.” Straight teenage boys shouldn’t be given a free pass to behave hatefully towards gays just because they’re creating their own identity. Teenagers of all genders and sexualities need to learn to build themselves up without tearing other people down.
@49 – Thanks!
But when I would try to post, it would time out and I’d get the message “internal server error – please try again later.” So, I did. Apologies!
Yeah, that server error pops up more often than it used to, Bauhaus. It’s usually a false alarm, though. Ah, the mysteries of the Internet!