My husband and I have been married for one year, but we had been dating for 10 years prior to that. I thought we had a very understanding relationship. In the last couple of days, I have found out that he has a serious obsession with females wearing running shoes. He had in the past hinted at the fact that it turns him on, but I had no idea of the scope of this obsession. I’ve discovered that he spends a large number of hours a week devoted to this fetish. He was sloppy in covering his tracks one day, and I found evidence on his computer.
I should also mention that when he told me he thought running shoes are hot, I thought he meant on me, not on all living and breathing females.
I believed that he could trust me enough to be open with me, but he has been hiding this from me for 11 years! I am still in shock and not quite sure how to deal with it. He obviously feels ashamed, otherwise he would have told me years ago. Why did he not bring this up before we got married? I had a right to know what I was getting into. I don’t know if I can live with knowing that he gets a hard-on for every running-shoe-wearing woman who goes by. I feel betrayed and creeped out. He says that he didn’t want to hurt me, but he has done just that. I feel physically sick to my stomach knowing that I didn’t really know who he was all this time. We still have to work it out and really talk about our new situation. But I am beginning to think our marriage isn’t going to survive this. Am I being too sensitive? How can I fix my marriage?
Dumbfounded In Brooklyn
Does your husband like your tits only, DIB, or can he get a hard-on for every tits-wearing woman who goes by? Does he like your pussy only, DIB, or can he get a hard-on for every pussy-wearing woman who goes by?
If your marriage can survive the husband being attracted to tits and pussy generally, DIB, but attracted to your tits and pussy particularly, your marriage should be able to survive the awareness that your husband is into women in running shoes generally but into you in running shoes particularly.
Why did he keep it from you? Because he was ashamed, DIB, because guys with fetishes are told—hey there, Prudie—that they’re disturbed and unlovable, and because no one bothers to inform straight women that fetishes are to male sexuality what lies are to a Fox News broadcast: likelier to be present than not. So he dropped hints but didn’t tell you during year one—or year two or three, year four, etc.—because he was afraid you would have the reaction you’re having at year eleven.
So what do you do now? You forgive him, if you give a shit about your marriage, if you actually ever loved him, and you do a little reading about male sexuality. Daniel Bergner’s The Other Side of Desire is a good place to start.
And ladies? If your boyfriend or husband has “hinted at the fact that [something or other] turns him on,” you can safely assume that [something or other] really turns him on.
A good friend of mine is engaged to a woman with an extremely low sex drive. He’d like to have sex every day; she barely responds to his touch. I advised him to work up the nerve to suggest an “understanding” or to disengage. If he’s this frustrated as a 27-year-old fiancé, how is he going to feel after five years in a monogamous marriage?
Concerned Buddy
Either your buddy won’t be married in five years or he won’t be monogamously married. Either way, CB, you spoke up, and that’s all a friend is required to do under the circumstances. Now you have to stand back and let your buddy make the biggest mistake of his life.
I assume you’ve heard of Chatroulette by now. I discovered it about four weeks ago, and I am strangely turned on by all the dudes on there jerking off. I have started to show my tits to some of these dudes because it is such a massive turn-on for me (who knew I had this exhibitionist streak in me?). My husband doesn’t know about any of this. However, all sexual arousal is redirected his way in the form of really hot, passionate fucking!
I feel bad about not telling my husband. Do you think this is cheating? If you say it is, Dan, I will stop.
Clever Acronym
I don’t want to call what you’re doing cheating, as cheating is such an ugly word, but odds are good that your husband would call it that.
Even so, CA, I’m reluctant to tell you to stop. Spend a few weeks reading my e-mails, and you will come to regard anything that lights a fire under the marital bed as a universal good. So talk to your husband. Tell him that you “discovered” Chatroulette about four weeks ago. Then tell him you were surprised by (1) just how many dudes are jerking off in front of their computers at any given moment and (2) just how turned on you were by their exhibitionism. Confess that you’ve been a bit obsessed with the site, add that it’s why you’ve been so horny lately, and then invite him to join you for a session. If he seems into the idea, or gets into it once you’re online, sheepishly confess that you’ve been flashing a little skin yourself.
Then fuck the husband’s brains out.
CONFIDENTIAL TO SAVAGE LOVERS: I need to ask you to do something. Not for me, but for a teenage lesbian in a small town. Constance McMillen is a senior at Itawamba Agricultural High School in Fulton, Mississippi. When she asked if she could attend prom with her girlfriend, she was told no. When Constance pressed her case, the Itawamba County School Board canceled prom rather than allow Constance to attend with her girlfriend. The school board had to know what would happen next: The other students blamed Constance for getting prom canceled and “ruining senior year.” Constance is now being harassed and bullied.
The school board claims it canceled prom to avoid “distractions.” Now it’s up to us—to decent people everywhere—to make sure that bigotry and discrimination are a much bigger distraction for the Itawamba County School District than inclusion and tolerance ever could’ve been.
E-mail, call, and fax Itawamba Schools superintendent Teresa McNeece (tmcneece@itawamba.k12.ms.us, phone 662-862-2159 ext. 14, fax 662-862-4713) and Itawamba Agricultural principal Trae Wiygul (twiygul@itawamba.k12.ms.us, 662-862-3104). Then join the Facebook page “Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom.” And, finally, make donations to the Mississippi Safe Schools Coalition (www.mssafeschools.org), which is organizing an alternate prom that will welcome all students, and make a larger donation to the ACLU LGBT Project (www.tinyurl.com/yl9mvkb).
Call, write, fax, donate. Constance needs to know that there are people all over the world who are on her side. And, more importantly, Itawamba County Schools needs to know that we’re not going to let them get away with this. Be respectful, but be relentless. Let’s show these bigots what a real distraction looks like. Get ’em.
@115… i worked for years as a school secretary, took the names of *friends* for the prom, never once did i take notice of the sex of any students involved, nor did i ask if they were fucking each other. Who cares? Itawamba Agricultural High School sounds like something straight out of the stilted 50s when people were crucified for being different.
@144… there are various ways to get around this problem situation, even when the said bigoted school has such hard-ass rules. Constance must have been aware of these rules, so she could have asked a male friend to take her date in with him. Or she could have organized a group of friends and they all arrive together. Who is to say what sexual orientation this one or that one is??
Why does it suddenly matter who you’re fucking when you arrive at the entrance to the prom?
Just saying that there are miriad ways to get around such hard-ass bigotry. Unfortunately, though, Constance sounds like a naive girl and spoke too soon, let the truth out, and got stomped into the ground by the hard-ass bigots. It’s really too bad.
I’m sticking up for her, and i’m a hetero 🙂
add
People Magazine just covered the bigots-cancelling-the-prom story, including a great photo of Constance proudly wearing her tux. In addition to emailing the Mississippi yahoos, you might also want to email editor@people.com thanking them for giving this important story some ink and showing American what young, out and proud looks like.
It took my boyfriend 12 years to disclose to me that he’s a fetishistic cross-dresser. If I hadn’t been listening to the Savage Love Podcast I might have flipped out. But since I have learned something from listening to all those podcasts, I was cool with it. So now we both wear my undies. So what? It’s a fun thing to share. And he’s still great in bed. He didn’t tell me before because he was deeply ashamed. He didn’t enjoy keeping this big whopping secret from me and everything is better now.
Here’s another email template; I think it’s a bad idea to condescend and ridicule.
Mr Wiygul/Ms. McNeece,
Sexual preference is a protected civil right. Discrimination based on sexual preference is a federal crime. By canceling the prom in reaction to Constance’s request to bring her girlfriend, Itawamba County School District has violated civil rights, supported bigotry, and condoned the idea that different is bad.
Furthermore, you have failed in the fundamental responsibility of schooling: students can’t learn if they don’t feel safe. You are not protecting Constance; you have made her a target. She cannot effectively learn if she is worried about being harmed. As adults, the school board has the responsibility to protect students from bigotry and discrimination, not encourage it. You also have a responsibility to create a safe learning environment. You have done neither.
Mississippi was on the frontlines of the civil rights movement because of its reactionary bigotry to black Americans. Wouldn’t it be nice to demonstrate that you can learn from history, that you can be educated, and promote civil rights, rather than stifle them?
needleworks
I just tried to email the school but the email address given is not working.
Hey dude commenters: Why the fuck should we acquiesce to your every desire when you obviously have no respect for women other than those willing to act like your own personal sex slaves? Can it with the “frigid prudey cunt” remarks. If you disagree with her then disagree, but there’s no excuse for that kind of derogatory, misogynistic language.
Hey gal commenters: Why the fuck should we acquiesce to your every desire when you obviously have no respect for men other than those willing to act like your own personal slaves? Can it with the “you only want sex slaves” remarks. If you disagree with hhim then disagree, but there’s no excuse for that kind of derogatory, misandristic language.
If you’re not willing to treat men as your equal; and that means treating their desires, wishes and wants as though they are every bit as important as your own; then you don’t deserve to be in a relationship.
Here’s what I sent the school system (both email addresses) that picked on the gay kids (and led to their assault at the school — yes, bullying IS assault and prosecutable as such):
“Shame on you.”
well if something turns him on, DO IT, BE IT; my boyfriend has a total-stranger fantasy, I can be the best ever total stranger ooooh yeah, works better for me than a real one in his life, and i like it too, and he can get into my liking for a guy wearing all his clothes and a cold, hard belt-buckle when he gets into my naked bed; we are new lovers and both pushing 60—still drop-dead gorgeous too.
thanks for providing the links for the MSSC Dan! <3
Ok DIB, how about this:
Try
1) apologizing for invading your husbands privacy
2) apologizing if you freaked out or shamed him for his fetish
3) admitting that the basis of your feelings is fear. Try this “Honey, I found this stuff on your computer and now I am afraid. I’m afraid that this means you might be hiding more secrets from me. I’m afraid that this means the sex we’ve been having for 11 years hasn’t been satisfying you. And lastly, I’m afraid that you keeping this secret means I was a bad partner to you, because you felt you couldn’t trust me with this.”
Then be quiet, fight all urges to be defensive or even respond, and let him talk. Listen to him. If you have questions, ask them in a non accusing way, even if that means you have to say ” I need a little time to digest this. Can we talk about it a little later so I can think?”
And then, let him reassure you. Don’t beat him up, don’t beat yourself up. How about just being honest that your panic is about fear. That’s my guess anyway.
And is it just me who thinks that having some secret sexual fantasies should be ok? My sexuality is mine, isn’t it, even if i’m committed to a partner? Just checking…. personally, i think we all have a right to that, and it’s not a betrayal….
@152
Complacency is equal to compliance. Yes, Constance could have worked around the rules that ban same-sex “romantic” couples at her prom, but that would not have challenged the status quo. She saw an injustice and refused to be treated differently.
She is far less naive than you are.
Just called the high school today and was told that nobody had any information and to call back tomorrow. Hmm….
That C.B./Concerned Buddy post: I actually know OF someone like that; goingt through exactly the same thing: for appearances, and other lucrative reasons. This man broke my heart. Your friend is a fucking idiot C.B. . His unhappiness will be well-deserved for not listening to his head or heart enough.
Sorry, Dan, I just couldn’t bring myself to be respectful, not even in e-mail. What they did was too malicious–they had to have calculated that Constance would be blamed and harrassed by her leotarded classmates. True, we should expect more of high school seniors, but this is fucking Chumba Wumba High we’re talking about.
Ah, whoops. Didn’t know the origin of the town’s name either, shouldn’t have made fun of it.
I am mortified about the people I work with! I posted the story about Mississippi School debaucle on Facebook and implored people to read it and take a stand against discrimination…absolutely no response. Nothing, nada. However, this morning many of these same people burned up their keyboards commenting on the health care bill and strangly they compared it with the end of days…weird. I failed to mention that I live in the middle of right wing christian country, Colorado Springs Colorado. Home of the oppressed and tortured closeted queer, Rev. Ted Haggard. Due to this fact, I shouldn’t be surprised by the lack of action to speak out about the discrimination of an honest, genuine lesbian teen. I will continue to spread the word. And, I in fact did send an email to the douche bag superintendent and principal of Itawamba H.S. voicing my thoughts about the whole thing.
David Bergner’s The Other Side of Desire.
Thanks, Dan! As a hopelessly clueless celibate het female, I am taking note.
I hope your marriage works out, DIB.
As someone who, at 39, has had a fetish his whole life (I’m only attracted to women with long, beautiful, “shampoo-commercial” hair), but who was only consciously aware of it for the past few years, I sympathize with the sneaker-fetish guy. Although it sounds like he was tuned into his fetish long before I was. For 15 years, I had furtive, unsatisfying sex where I had to deal with ED and performance anxiety doubting myself and all that kind of crap, and where I didn’t think sex was that great or that big a deal, because I didn’t know what turned me on. I have never actually slept with someone who (because they had sexy, shiny hair) got me hard and made me come. That sucks ass… but I’m in the process of trying to do what I need to do in my life to be able to successfully find and date someone who does it for me, and I’m much happier knowing that I *can* be really aroused and horny and into it (even if I’ve got nobody with whom to *be* horny at the moment) than I ever was before, when I couldn’t even figure out why having the opportunity to put my dick in a vagina wasn’t sufficient motivation for my dick to get hard.
Oh, and Dan Savage is a spectacular gift to humanity and should be President.
OKay, DIB, let’s think about this:
You feel betrayed because your husband kept this hidden from you for 11 years. But, ask yourself why he kept this hidden from you. Did he hide it form you because he felt that he could not trust you with it, because he thought you would freak out and “be sick to your stomach” when you found out?
Now that you know, you are freaking out and “sick to your stomach”; your husband was 100% right in not trusting you with this knowledge.
Prove him wrong! Show him that you understand there is nothing wrong with him, that it is a good thing for him to be the person he is, and that it was silly of him to worry about it. Show him that his lack of trust is without merit.
Trust cannot be legislated, nor does it accumulate at a steady rate: you can be steady, engaged and married for as long as you want, but if the conditions that exist in your relationship are not conducive to building up trust, it will not build up, and no amount of “feelings of betrayal” will make it so.
Hey @ 71: I have long, straight, reddish-brown “shampoo-commercial” sort of hair.. You sound like my kinda guy 😉 …
@ 172: I just don’t understand what motivates people to settle for less in a relationship, such as, sexual imcompatibility, a lack of a true intimate connection on an interpersonal level, someone who doesn’t share the same sort of ability for humor as the other, someone who isn’t as strong or determined as the other… I’ve had a generally-beautiful but quite complex .. relationship … with someone for nearly fifteen years now, and -as difficult as it was (for various, non-disclosed reasons) to finally have time and everything to be in our favor to get together, it has been fraught with every imaginable life challenge you can conjure up.. *Yet* I still am in love with him.. The Reason I remain I in love with him still is because of THE TRUE CONNECTION that remains between he and I. You’re absolutely right Valhar2000: trust, faith, all of it: it takes *years* to develop. I am fortunate in that -while at the time I write this my significant beloved and I are having a rough patch- I also know that there isn’t anyone else for me in the world that connects with me as ingeniously as this man does, and that’s why I continue to feel faith in what we share still. I too have been celibate during our downtimes. I just want it to work out for not only myself and him, but anyone else going through such duress.. *If you have a great thing, don’t lose it.* Hang on at all costs and work it out. There’s a dime a dozen for surrogates but it’s rarer than rocking horse shit to find The Ultimate. Thanks 🙂 . Have a good day everyone. Cheers.
I called both McNeece’s and Wiygul’s offices. At the latter I first spoke to a student aid who hung up on me. I called back and asked him “Young man, did you hang up on me?” That got an adult.
I was respectful, compassionate, passionate and even appealed to “Christian compassion”. I felt like I was talking to a brick wall… which means that we ALL need to keep calling.
@173 — What a wonderful surprise to see your comment… you sound like my kind of girl! 😉 You’re not in NYC, by any chance, are you?
@175: good on ya. I did the same thing (reminding her of God’s love for all) in reply to hate mail I got from an unknown person who saw my post on Constance’s facebook site. Then I took that woman’s message and sent it to the superintendent and principal. Said hey, don’t listen to me, listen to your own fellow Missi’pian–this is the hate that supports your decision.
On the bright side, Constance is from Mississippi, meaning that not everyone there is that brick wall!
hey clavis maybe you and 173 will meet and fall in love. That would be a Dan Savage moment straight out of Lifetime tv.
Or maybe, someday, you can bring up the idea of wigs with someone you care about on other levels as well.
@ 178: You sound like someone who has half a clue;) .
🙂
Lifetime TV! LOL All I think of when I think of that channel is tampon commercials where the mom and daughter drive down a pine-tree-lined street in the rain, playing tennis and riding horses;) . No, no, no, no! The reddish-brown one! (wig) ” “;), ain’t that a b***h? LOL
(A Prince song reference;)!)
At any rate, who knows about the falling in love? 🙂 That would be a welcome thing.
Goodnight 🙂
@ 178 : Wigs and hair extensions don’t work. I know that sounds crazy, but in a way, it’s probably the same as guys who are really into big breasts being turned off by fake breasts moreso than guys (like me) who have no objection to them. If I know it’s a wig, it immediately ceases to get the job done.
And thanks for your compassion and advice. I’m sure it was meant entirely in a positive and supportive spirit.
@90 I completely agree with this. People are freaking out about this “vanilla fetish” and that it could be worse- that DIB is insane for feeling this way. But, as a newer reader to this column I feel that some of your views have been warped from what is more “normal”. If you’re reading this stuff all the time you need to remove yourself to have some perspective.
In this case, it’s not entirely about the sex. Don’t just look at the act itself but the entire situation. In fact, I would say only about 5% is about the sex. DIB is saying that after 11 years together with someone, she finds out that he has this secret. To her, it’s like her husband has this entire other secret life that she has only found out about after 11 years. Shouldn’t we all have some sympathy for that? She’s not disturbed by the fetish itself it seems, but more that she has gone this long without realizing he spends hours everyday looking at women in running shoes. As someone that has engaged in almost every kink possible in a heterosexual relationship- even I feel bad for her. I am lucky enough to have someone I can share and indulge in kink with but to realize the depth and obsession that her husband seems to pursue this fetish with is what bothers her, and me too.
@ 83 and 89: DIB is clueless about HUMAN sexuality, not male sexuality. And both of you appear clueless as well.
Plenty of hetero women are every bit as kinky and sex-obsessed as men. By which I mean: we watch porn; we have fetishes (and Dan should have given us a shout out in his response); we fantasize about fucking the UPS guy, etc. We get that our partner is, has been, and will be attracted to other women because—big shocker!—we are, have been, and will be attracted to other men! For every wife with unrealistic expectations, there’s a husband or bf who explodes with jealousy at the idea of “his woman” fucking someone else.
But we don’t hear the women’s perspective that often, because so many of us were raised to believe that “nice girls don’t.” When boys hit puberty and start masturbating like crazy, it’s “Boys will be be boys.” How about when girls do exactly the same thing? Well, my mother called me dirty 10 million times, I was deeply ashamed, and it took years for me to realize that I was normal for being interested in sex.
Both of you are perpetuating gender myths by pretending that men are somehow more sexual than women. Before you complain about prudish women, consider how many times those women have been made to feel ashamed of their sexual desires over the course of a lifetime. They are clueless about HUMAN sexuality—and their own sexuality—and that’s sad.
@ 180: About the positive and supportive spirit: it’s simply not true. I know this guy who wrote it. He’s not what he portrays. I thought you should know as I’ve had to. That, and he likes Lifetime TV’s, like transvestites: something I’m not and never will be. Sad indeed it is. Thanks/Goodbye. ZSTEZ
Bullsh**t zero, I”m solutions and I *absolutely* support 173 and clevis. I suggested the wigs because I think it would be hard if a fetish left out such a huge chunk of the human race. It seems like a foot or sneaker fetish would be easier to deal with.
And about lifetime? I might actually be the only person around here that watches that damn channel, late at night when the cynics around here are asleep. It’s all maxipads, btw. Tampax are old school.
@ 184: Sorry for being such a do***bag to you.. I was out of line, and I’m Sorry for losing my s***.. I too watch the Lifetime channel: mostly for Golden Girls episodes if there’s nothin’ on when I get home from work at 6:00pm lol. That, and those feel-good movies do get to ya and reel ya in.
🙂
I hope you can forgive me for my obvious rudeness and ignorance.. I didn’t mean it, and it was awful of me to write that one at one eight three. Thanks/Take Care, Zero Beginning Anew :).
JUST an FYI Let Constance take her girlfriend to prom now has over 413,000 supporters 🙂
Maybe DIB is having an issue with the fact that for the last 11 years, she hasn’t known who he is, and therefore has not been satisfying him fully for the last 11 years. It’s a tough spot to be in when you realize that maybe you’ve been “doing it wrong” all this time. Had the same problem myself, and I was upset because of my own perceived shortcoming, not something he did. Kind of an ego bruise, and it’s easier to project it onto the other person.
@182- You’re great, I loved our share. Wish all of us cold be treated equally!!
@16 that was the funniest comment i have ever read on this site. hahahaha
@71 – Start liking yourself more and then you will allow yourself to enjoy sex with other human beings.
The reason why your “preference” is just about the most chilling anyone could write is that all a woman would have to do is shave her head to find out just how shallow you are!
Seriously. Try loving yourself and connecting with you are because when you get older the world isn’t so filled with shiny haired UNREAL women who star in shampoo ads.
In the past, I have changed my hair colour, cut ALL of my hair off, lost weight, gained weight and did various other things to change my appearance and it never once occurred to me that some simpleton wouldn’t have enough sense to realise he was dating ME and not my blooming hair!
Do yourself a favour. Stay single….or, take my advice and find out why you are using a woman’s hair as an excuse to deny yourself a connection with almost ALL of the rest of the women on earth.
I say, stay single, because you wouldn’t be able to handle a woman getting a haircut without being an asshole about it so do the world a favour as well.
@ 26 – Er, no. That letter is about the most self-indulgent piece of claptrap I’ve read in years.
Folks, if you really want those who choose not to “listen” in life to hear what you have to say, then YOU have to be the bigger person. The minute you point fingers, accuse or use vulgar language, you have forfeited your right to be heard. You wouldn’t want to be attacked so why in the world would you think others would want that?
Just because YOU don’t agree with the actions of others does NOT mean they have to listen to your abusive ramblings.
The only way to get through to people is to do it with your actions.
Even though my own brother is gay and I personally don’t give a toss what anyone else is doing with their homes, their loved ones or their lives, I wouldn’t be the recipient of such a letter either but I do know that I’d bin it immediately AND I know that people with an encrusted, super-religious, attitude would go one further and probably burn it and then “pray” for you as well.
So, in other words, you’d only be making them dig their heels in and defend their position.
The ONLY way to make a stand is to quietly sign a petition or to write a letter that LOGICALLY states what THEY could gain from having the prom because if you haven’t figured out they frankly, don’t give a flying shit about this young ladies prom attendance – or even the whole school’s – then you ought not be writing any letters.
Big picture, folks. Big picture.