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.
“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.”
realizing this about a year ago was the best thing i’ve ever done for my sex life.
@1 seriously. It’s not really a fetish but my boyfriend hinted that he liked being bitten and I did it from time to time and I hinted I liked my nipples touched and he did it every now and again. Now we do this all the time before sex and it makes it so much hotter. Now we both know that these things were a bigger deal than either of us were letting on.
I don’t suppose naming the entire school board as a pack of reactionary bigots would count as respectful. I will have to recompose my email.
The DON’T Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom site has a whopping 79 members compare to the Let Constance Take Her Girlfriend to Prom page which has over 315,000
DAN.
Most kids would love the chance to stick it to their school administrations. Constance’s peers need to be enlisted in her support; I’m sure at least some of them would be happy to stage a sit-down in favor of reinstating prom and letting her go.
Play it up.
Hm, toughie. I think if a couple agrees to monogamy, it is good form to be discreet about any possible hots you might be having for other people, their boobs, pussies, running shoes, pecs, abs, dicks, asses and so on. I don’t think any monogamous woman likes to see her husband/boyfriend ogling other women in real life, so naturally she doesn’t want to see him ogling their photos on his computer either. But when she makes a fuss about it, then it shouldn’t be because of cheating – no cheating took place, but because of bad manners and maybe lack of respect for her. Monogamous men, how would you feel if your girlfriend/wife told you “I’d love to lick that guy over there head to toe and ride him like a mad cowgirl till dawn”? Well, that’s what your looks directed at other women tell us, and we don’t enjoy it.
In other words, we know that you have to look, but the farther you keep your looking from our eyes, the more care and respect you’re showing for us. (I know it was his computer, but if they were ok with using each other’s computer, as couples normally are, she had the right to expect him to do a better job of hiding his stash.)
I couldn’t disagree more, tiare @6. Maybe I’m just cranky tonight, but I’d just like to strangle DIB—I mean, hello honey!, your guy just handed you the golden ticket to happiness. Get over yourself. Figure out how to indulge this thing of his, a way for him to bring it all home to you, and he will be your adoring slave forever and ever.
(BTW, I’m a woman too.)
I’m also a woman, and has the shame associated with SPYING ON YOUR HUSBAND somehow vanished in the 21st century? That’s much more of a social crime than ogling women in running shoes.
I mean, sure, people may not be able to resist temptation to take a peek at things, but at least realize that what you are doing is WRONG. Don’t just toss off a mention in an ends justifies the means aside.
DIB doesn’t think her marriage can last because her husband is attracted to other women’s running shoes?
Be grateful DIB. Wear running shoes for him and ignore his running shoe porn. Don’t look for it on his computer… just get your own damn computer, sheesh.
Dan’s said it before… if you dump the guy who you find out has a harmless fetish (like running shoes) you’ll end up with a guy who’s really good at hiding a dangerous or really creepy fetish (like pedophelia or necrophelia or bestiality or something).
Let this one go (assuming he’s a great guy in all other aspects) and be thankful he’s only into running shoes and not into decapitated-donkeys-in-running-shoes.
mother-in-law? when did she get married?
I tried to call the number and found that it had no voicemail- we will have to call in the daytime. 🙂
Dan – I agree with everything you’ve said about the prom debacle, but it is unwise of you to ridicule the county’s name in your podcast. Constance and her girlfriend should be allowed to go to prom; it’s bigotry to stop them. But intentionally mangling the pronunciation of the county – named for a Native American leader – does not bespeak sophistication or tolerance or open-mindedness. Again, I agree substantively with everything you’ve said, but this ridicule is exactly the kind of arrogance that progressives need to be careful of (that is, if you ever hope to convince anyone in Itawamba County of your views). You say everyone should be respectful in their calls to Itawamba County officials; you should take your own advice.
MississippianAtYale
Dan, you sure let DIB off easy.
“Why did he not bring this up before we got married?”
Gee, it couldn’t have been that he knew you well enough to know that you’d react in a totally accusatory way, be creeped out by it, and blame your over-reaction on _him_, could it? Or that he didn’t trust you w/ this information because he (rightly) suspected that you’re not trust-worthy.
Sweetie, here’s a nickel, go buy yourself a clue. Your husband was trying to avoid hurting you, because he knows who you are. In spite of you being a judgmental, uptight, close-minded cunt, he still loves you! You should kneel in front on of your man, clad in the brightest running-shoes possible, and tell him your days of being Ms. Prude are over, that you love him and will do what you can to live up to the incredible love he feels for you.
Wow, running shoes? What a creepy fetish. I mean, what could POSSIBLY be worse than a guy into running shoes??
Listen up DIB, he could be into dead chicks, horses, dead horses… and now you have an excuse to buy a shiny new pair of REALLY expensive sneakers every season. And yeah, if you wear them to bed more often, he’ll look at less shoe porn. (Less, not none. No guy watches no porn, get used to it. Also, many many women love the nekkid vids, so stop being such a damn prude.)
DIB, maybe you are not disturbed that your relationship is a fraud. Maybe the thing really bothering you is the cognitive dissonance from that part of your brain you are trying so hard to ignore (just like you ignored your husband’s hints) that has realized that you are an insensitive, selfish freak. Christ, and over such a vanilla fetish. You obviously think you are much better wife than you really are.
Ditch him. He’s much better off hiding in the bushes at the nearest 5K race.
Yeah, seriously- good call Scary. Pretty progessive of Mississippi to institute gay marriage when California can’t, huh?
jfljoe, #17, I assume you’re directing your comment at me? No one is claiming Mississippi as progressive. I’m only commenting that, if you want to convince Mississippians of your point of view, ridiculing the Native American names of their counties is not the best way to go about it. Why stoop to that when you can just argue the fairness of your position?
@18- Don’t get your knickers in a bunch. He’s directing his comment to 7, who claims to have sat next to Constance’s MIL on a plane. She can’t have a MIL- sorry Pamela.
DIB is being a prig with no freaking sense of humor. Give the guy a break! She’s all up offended because her fella likes hot women in running shoes. Who doesn’t like hot women in running shoes. Why do women want to lock up a man’s eyeballs when they marry, what a bore!
@18- The comment’s directed to Pamela @7 who claims to have sat next to Constance’s MIL. No MIL’s for Constance, so what gives, Pamela?
Great advice for CB, Dan. I’m ever amazed at the young fools that still buy into the notion that marriage will solve everything, and/or that sex isn’t such a big deal. Comes from the Judeo/Christian ‘values’ in this country that preach that all things sex are to be handled by God- no practical thinking allowed, and surely no discussion before marriage.
One more divorce before the ink’s dry on the marriage license, as sexual compatibility is vital to anyone with a libido. Good thing we gays are handy to blame for the demise of straight marriage.
Sorry for double post @21.
so DIB, you’re in park slope, right?
@14 to 16,
Admittedly, DIB’s emotions are all over the place so she didn’t voice very clearly what exactly is bothering her, but since she seems to be fine with the notion her husband thinks she looks hot in running shoes, I don’t think she has a problem with his fetish. She has a problem with him not telling her it’s a fetish, i.e. something he wants in bedroom as opposed to clothing items he thinks she looks hot in but doesn’t care all that much if they’re incorporated in sex or not. And of course the fact that other female owners of running shoes give him erections.
If anyone needs a template for your emails, you can borrow mine:
subject: Let Constance McMillen bring her girlfriend to prom!
My name is *blanked for internet privacy*. I’m a 25-year-old, professional, heterosexual female who is happily in love with her boyfriend. I’m also the sister of a lesbian in a committed relationship with her girlfriend. Your close-mindedness is an abomination, yet it exemplifies the Bible-thumping idiocy we as a nation have come to expect from your state. Why not try bucking convention and doing the right thing, instead of the convenient thing?
You’ve also, by canceling your school’s prom, made a target of Constance. I expect a lynch mob in klan robes isn’t an irregular sight around town, so you may not be concerned about this. But did you know that GLBTs as a whole have a much lower life expectancy than cisgendered heterosexuals, simply because they’re more likely to be killed by rabid fundamentalists?
You also realize that sexual preference is a protected civil right? I doubt it. But now perhaps you’re a bit wiser.
What a sad, old (wo)man you are.
@25
Well, thank you for the ESP lesson. I’m not gifted like you are, so I just took her words at face value.
For example, when she says,
“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.”
and
“I feel physically sick to my stomach knowing that I didn’t really know who he was all this time.”
that’s pretty clear to me that she has a problem w/ his fetish, and not just about keeping it a secret. If only I had tiare’s psychic powers, I’d understand differently. Maybe she can give me lessons.
But thank you for the lesson in what a fetish is. What _would_ I do w/o you?
Oh, and why do I know you’re female? Because only a woman would worry about where a man’s boner comes from. Just because a man can get a woody over a variety of words, bodies, faces, thoughts & images doesn’t mean they don’t love their GFs & wives, or that the erections they get w/ them are somehow “dishonest.” The only time you women need to worry is when your men get erections elsewhere _and don’t_ get them with you, which doesn’t seem to be DIB’s problem.
At least, she didn’t write anything about their sex life, but I’m sure tiare knows. She’s psychic.
As for Concerned Buddy: “He’d like to have sex every day; she barely responds to his touch.”
Um…maybe she’s not frigid. Maybe he’s DOING IT WRONG. Rather than assuming he should dump her because she’s not going to bone him as much as he wants, he should sit down and find out if he’s stampeding towards the clitoris, doing that gross tongue thrusting-in-and-out-of-your-mouth kiss thing, or completely disrespecting or disregarding her needs in the bedroom. Just a thought.
@27, who pissed in your cornflakes?
I felt a bit bad for the running shoes guy, as it seems like such a harmless thing to be into, totally legal and easily indulged by your monogamous partner. All that time hiding his web tracks, when he could have just asked his wife! I’m a long-distance runner with a shoe addiction so maybe my viewpoint is skewed 🙂 I would better empathize with her outrage if his fetish were based on, say, a body type or race that automatically excluded her.
Advice to CA was right on! I guess one would need a contingency plan in case the husband is disgusted and never wants to speak of it again (would that be to drop the topic and continue to secretly flash the random men, thus risking that you someday forget to erase your web history and your husband finds out…)
Dan, you missed the boat with DIB. It’s not about her husband’s fetish, but rather it’s about the fact that he did not openly divulge this information fully in 11 years. This is about trust.
The key phrase is “but he has been hiding this from me for 11 years”. If he was not open about this, what else is he not open about? What might he be hiding completely? DIB has every right to feel betrayed, hurt, and thrown off kilter.
@31 DIB’s log suffering husband did disclose and DIB freaked out and pushed the memory of it into a memory hole labeled “hints”.
Ladies, you don’t get the truth unless and until you give your husbands permission to be truthful.
Tiare: So the guy was rude because he didn’t hide his festish well enough? As in his wife only found out after 11 years?! That’s some damn good hiding. You’re right, though, it’s a matter of respect. A member of a monogamous couple shouldn’t just announce “Hey, I want to bone him or her!” But that’s not what this guy was doing. He was looking at pictures of women with shoes. And maybe he would see a woman in shoes in public and get a boner. Who knows? But he WAS being discreet.
DIB: Don’t ask for an apology, offer one. Put yourself in his shoes. Your husband didn’t choose his kink. And he didn’t want to experience shame or make you feel the way you now say you feel. So for years he lived a (little) lie, hid out. Sure, he lied to you–if you call lying only go as far as saying those sports shoes turned him on. But he lied because he knew the price he’d pay for being real with you.
Anyway, to me, this is another one of those instances of “porn is cheating.” It ain’t. I suspect that for 99.9%, of men anyway, it’s just a masturbatory aid, no more.
I’m completely baffled by the first letter. They’ve been together for 11 years, it’s been a great relationship in so many ways, and now, just because she’s learning he gets turned on by running shoes, she feels “betrayed” and “creeped out”? What is the big deal here?
And Dan suggests he never told her about it because he was ashamed? How about another reason: because he never saw what the big freakin’ deal was? God knows I don’t! Maybe he’s been “hiding it for 11 years” because he never thought it was important enough to address. Am I the only one who feels this way?
Wow.
Is DB my grandma?
No…I bet even my gramma would react better to grampys weird fetish than this lady.
They’re RUNNING SHOES. I can literally think of no tamer fetish.
Why don’t you go google ‘fetish’ and see what you get?
Weird shit, eh?
All men have fetishes. All of them. For some its tits. For some it’s cellophane bodybags.
If you ever plan on having sex with a male ever again, I can pretty much guarantee he’ll be into weirder shit than shoes. Count yourself lucky that all you have to deal with is reeboks and go tell your husband your sorry for being an more overreactionary than a Burmese Junta.
Dan, you forgot to tell her that if she really loved her husband, she’d put on some running shoes and fuck him silly.
Re: (662) 862-3104 / Dumbfound In Brooklyn:
I don’t see what the big deal is with the wife wearing the running shoes, if not actually running for her man. 1. Her bod will be naturally tweaked by the exercise &.. 2.)Maybe;) she’ll discover that she enjoys the enacting her husband’s very reasonable fetish and;) in turn find that it turns her on to turn him on so much by granting him his wish.
It’s *insane* of the wife to not indulge her husband’s very vanilla, harmless fetish. What business does she have being his wife if she doesn’t bend a bit and allow him his own selfish happiness? It is allowed.
Re: Concerned Buddy
Same reason as above. His friend is really in for some unhappiness and unnecessarily-complicated pain is he goes through with marrying a woman who doesn’t have a sex drive that matches his own. Isn’t the whole point *really* in being married is because you’ve found as close as you can get to being with someone who satisfies you enough on as many levels as you’ve ever known? He’s a good friend for trying to help, and I agree with Dan: the engaged friend is on his own from there..
Re: Clever Acronym
As long as it’s only your breasts and not your face or I.P. address visible 😉 lol
That, and I am eager to look into helping Constance.
🙂
Thanks everyone and have a great morning/day. Peace. TVu;-Du;) lol
Advice to DIB:
Men get turned on by women, with the exception of gay men of course, so it should not shock you that he gets boners looking at other women. The fact that he looks at the specific article of clothing that a woman is wearing, really shouldn’t matter that much. It could just as easily be heels, boots, skirts, tight jeans, tank tops, tight T-shirts; or all of the above. He probably let you find this on his computer, since you didn’t take the earlier hints, and hoped that you would get the hint and wear sneakers for him more often. Instead you flipped out, and you damaged the marriage, not him. The fix, start wearing running shoes for him while cooking dinner, during sex, doing laundry, while watching TV, while out shopping; hell, take him shoe shopping, he’d probably love it.
Advice to CB:
Dan’s advice was pretty spot on, but perhaps your advice for him to get her to come to an understanding was misguided. He should sit down and talk to her about what her expectations are for sex, and explain his to her, so that they can move forward. Maybe she has an odd fetish that he just isn’t hitting, or maybe the relationship is about more than sex. But as for you, your part is done.
Advice to CA:
Unless you’re sure that your husband will get off on you showing your tits to strangers online, I wouldn’t bring it up right away. My suggestion would be to introduce him slowly, to your new fetish, and make it seem like you are flashing for the first time as a spur of the moment thing. If he doesn’t mind, then you might consider telling him you’ve been doing it for a while.
I think people should be warned that when they go on Chatroulette they can end up having their picture taken and distributed around the internet or published in places like the New York Times. If CA’s exposing herself, she might want to keep her face hidden.
Thanks for the info on how to help support Constance.
DIB:
…WTF? What’s so creepy about Running Shoes? That’s the most harmless fetish I’ve ever heard of, less so than a sandels fetish (running shoes are comfortable!).
Yeesh, what a prude.
We should have let the South secede when we had the chance. They have never been anything but a drag on the progress of this nation.
Listen, normally I don’t question orders, when Dan issues a call to arms on behalf of the Fag Nation, I’m usually the 1st one to suit up.
But before I wage internet war against Itawamba Schools I just want to check to corners.
We get alot of our news these days unfiltered. I just want to be sure that this young girl is legitimatly trying to attend the prom as a gay couple and not trying to make a play for attention by shouting ‘I’m Gay’ from the roof tops.
I don’t care if you are gay. I don’t think I ever cared. Just like I don’t care if you are Black, or if you where Manchester United underpants, or if you listen to Phish.
Real oppression is having someone come to your house in the middle of the night, put a bag over your head, and torture you at an undisclosed location for years and years and years because you weren’t at the Party meeting last Thursday. OMG you go to public school and the staff their are small minded cretins? Join the club. Sounds like this girl has a supportive family and is going to join the rest of us in the real world next year.
So can I get verification on these orders sir?
Oh and Dan should have destroyed DIB. What a whiny little bitch. Lets hope her next husband is into corpophagia and anonymous group sex.
Running shoes. Honestly…
I agree on the need to send a letter, but I feel, as I think Dan does, to be hostile will only make the school officials more steadfast, as if to say, “See what these people write? Why should be listen?”
I suggest appealing to their sense of humanity and the inevitability of gay rights as human rights. In my letter, I said:
I am writing to express my hope that you will change your mind and reinstate the prom, and allow Constance McMillen to attend with her girlfriend. To set her apart and cancel the prom is to single out people improperly on the basis of sexual orientation. On October 28, 2009, President Obama signed into law the Matthew Shepard act, making crimes motivated by a victim’s actual or perceived sexual orientation a federal hate crime.I bring this up to implore upon you that this is the time to stand up and end hate. This is the time to make sure our young person learn tolerance, not prejudice. This is the time to be heroes and support human rights. Gay rights are human rights. As educators and persons who care about what our young people–all of them–must face in the world, should they be given the best, most positive start possible? You can be heroes, you can do the right thing. I hope that you will find in your hearts the compassion to do so.
Gabriel’s World
God. DIB needs to STFU and put on some damn running shoes.
Anybody curious about that phone number?
I looked it up. It belongs to Sandy Sabine of Itawamba Agricultural High School.
Constance McMillen, a senior at IAHS, wanted to bring her girlsfriend, a sophomore at the school to her HS prom and was told that IAHS policy states that she cannot because prom dates must be of the “opposite sex.”
Constance McMillen is suing, claiming this is a free speech issue. Find out more here: http://www.scribd.com/doc/28221069/McMil…
Show your support for Candance and call the school at (662) 862-3104 to tell them that they need to get over their antiquated, sexually repressive policy.
Here’s what I wrote to the Superintendent and the Principal, trying to steer away from shaming and making anyone in the situation bad or wrong. The folks who made the decision, I am sure, thought that they were making the best decision. I can see that their position comes from a place of limitation, but they may not see that. I hope to make a connection with them, in order to have my message reach them.
Dear—–
I am writing to ask that the school district reconsider some recent decisions concerning the prom and Constance McMillan. I can appreciate the need to make the prom a safe and enjoyable event for all of the students. I can imagine that Constance’s request to attend the prom with a girlfriend might have come as a surprise and a shock. And yet, homosexuality is a reality for for a certain percentage of the population. I honor Constance’s courage to stand in her own truth and knowing of herself. I wonder if the school district can be equally courageous; to be willing to see a bigger picture that will allow for each of the students to be honored and seen, exactly as they are.
I write to ask if the school district would be willing to make a change to a long standing policy that limits prom attendance to heterosexual couples. I ask the school district to consider the needs of all the students and to allow gay and lesbian students to attend with same sex partners, in a celebration of diversity and the open heart.
Respectfully,
Kathleen
@30maybe the woman with the problem with the running shoe fetish is one of those doughy girls that NEVER works out. so he’s NOT really attracted to her in running shoes…. ’cause she doesn’t wear them.
Most of the comments about DIB seem to be pretty on-target. I haven’t seen any about the point that most struck me in her letter… “I feel physically sick to my stomach knowing that I didn’t really know who he was all this time.” Who on Earth “really knows” their partner? Heck, I’m 40, and I can’t say I really know MYSELF let alone someone else. Humans are complicated animals, and we remake ourselves every day. Embrace the mystery, sweet heart… and give your poor husband a break.
Poor D.I.B.: she’s getting all hysterical over something her husband is entitled to: his fantasies as long as he’s pleasuring himself or sharing the pleasure with his wife. If she can’t withstand the “shock” of not knowing her husband had a fetish for women in running shoes, then what does it say for the rest of the state of her marriage?
As for C.B.:
You mean well, but your buddy is going to do what he’s gonna do. Personally? I couldn’t ever see myself marrying anyone who wasn’t similar in sex drive to me. I know some people equate marriage with settling down and boringness, but why should it be? If you really follow your heart, gut and mind, you’ll find the right person. Otherwise, maybe the friend his fiance’ are content with out-of-sync sexual desires. I wouldn’t go there, but then, that’s just me 🙂 .
As for C.A.:
It’s not necessarily my thing, flashing strangers on a web cam, but that’s not to say I condemn it either: to each their own. If it subsequently fuels your desire for your hubby after the fact-and your face is not visible (that, or that pesky I.P. address), then why tell him? Although you may want to buy your own laptop and hide it away when the cat comes home after the mice have played lol.
Support for Constance 🙂 .
Good Day Everyone.
🙂
I would say that running shoes fetish is the most under the radar fetish you could have no need to hide you fetish stuff. No need to worrie about security finding a dildo or another normal toy, hell just wear them on the plain. No need to hide them from the perents or friends. Just pack workout outfit and you don’t ever need to answer and akward question agean. Is there a more inocuious item based fetish?
@D.I.B. – Gloria Swanson wants her fainting couch back. Don’t be so melodramatic. Your husband told you what he was in to, you chose to interpret it how you wanted to interpret it. Has he been there for you in the past 11 years? Have you shared your “ups and downs” over the past 11 years? You want to throw 11 faithful years away for something this trivial? For you to say you “don’t know who he is anymore”…ridiculous. If he was hesitant to repeat himself as far as his desires go, your letter justifies him being “closeted”. You don’t say how you reacted the first time he told you.
#28. If a woman’s response to her mate not doing it the way *she* wants is to just not have sex, than it is even more a DTMFA than if she is simply frigid. (Always hated that term, btw.)
Ladies, your sexuality is yours, own it, and then speak the fuck up about what you want. Men don’t read minds.
So take some fucking ownership or stick with a vibrator and leave men alone. But whatever you do, don’t opine that a woman’s lack of interest should be grounds for saying a man to engage in attempted ESP to figure things out. It should be grounds to DTMFA and go find a woman who is not so scared of talking about sex.
Oh, and letter writer number one, you really need to get your shit together.
Do you honestly think a man will only have eyes for you (or your running shoes)?
What, you *never* think of Brad Pitt pounding away on you, just the way you like it, atop a bed of roses and all his money? Of course you do. I bet you rub one off on occasion with just that sort of loop in your head or one of your choosing. Maybe some “Mandingo” movie rape scene?
Anyway, for Buddha’s sake, would you fucking stop it, lady? This is *your* entirely unreasonable fetish–that he is hopelessly, entirely smitten by you, you, you, and only you–that is ruining your marriage, not his utterly harmless one.
I gotta say it seems like Dan let DIB off a little light. Geez, girl, get over yourself! And one more piece of advice that I think Dan should have thrown in…girl needs to go out and get some running shoes STAT!
Could any Dan Savage reader REALLY write a letter like DIB expecting anything but condemnation?? If we’ve learned nothing from the eternal wisdom of our Guru, Dan, we’ve at least learned that fetishes are normal, people are horny, sex is a good thing, and we owe it to ourselves and our partners to be free. I call bulls–t.
having been assigned female from birth and raised a girl and thus meeting our general societal standards for “woman”… i am always baffled by the “don’t you get it, women, men are like THIS!” stuff.
i watch porn. i’m super visual. i engage with the kink community. i have many kinks – not quite fetishes, but plenty of understanding of fetishes. i would LOVE to have a partner into running shoes. i could take ’em to the gym with me and let ’em ogle people while i got my cardio on. that way i wouldn’t have to choose between “relationship” time and “get ready for the next 5K run” time!
it always distresses me to see people like this dude ending up in a position to feel ashamed of their awesome sexuality for so many years. running shoes is a pretty cool fetish! and so easy to indulge in all the time.
i’m sorry that DIB is experiencing this as a huge source of betrayal and anxiety when instead she could take the opportunity to launch them on a fitness craze together. just think, they could jog every day – she keeps in shape, he keeps in shape AND gets excited, later on they have hot sex, and they spend many many more years together because they fueled themselves into the best health of their lives due to his fetish. yay for running shoes!
and SO glad to see this call-to-action from dan for the prom couple. i’ve been following this story since it became a story and i’m glad for the push to really DISTRACT these bigoted people. ten years ago i went to MY senior prom with a girl. i wrote about it for the school newspaper, and researched the experiences of fellow teenagers in the region. i freaked out personally about it and coming out to the whole school, but felt it wasn’t TOO daring because after all, i was graduating and wouldn’t be around for any harassment!
after the article came out, a number of people came out to me and gave me their support – including a couple of the teachers i had always suspected were in the closet. as for my school, they did not throw a fit, or do much more than raise an eyebrow. my date and i attended uneventfully and i was not harassed at all by anyone. overall i’m extremely glad i did it, though it was hard at the time. so sad to see the ridiculous reaction of this school district, ten years later.
Running shoes??? They’re so comfortable! You’ve hit the jackpot girl. That’s how I’d feel if my husband confessed he was really turned on by the old sweatpants and baggy sweatshirts I love to wear around the house. I mean does he prefer you in your glasses too, instead of your contact lenses? Don’t really see what the problem is here.
And women don’t lust after men that aren’t their husbands? Bullshit!
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’ve got news for you, DIB. Most men get a hard-on for virtually every woman between the ages of 16 and 40 who walks by. This is known as “being a heterosexual male”. If this is a problem for you, I suggest celibacy.
Wow, DIB. WOW. If I discovered just today a new fetish or kink my husband kept from me (out of respect, you jerk, because he cares about your idiotic feelings), I would be so glad to have one more way to turn him on. The fact that it might be as simple as comfortable footwear, well heck. I’ve already got running shoes! Score!! And he did not hide it from you. He disclosed it and you chose to ignore it. You need to apologize for that. Seriously.
I’m a woman, and I get turned on by random strangers all the time! I’m also totally in love with my husband and completely monogamous. We have a great sex life, and if I ever feel like fucking someone else, I turn to my magnificent collection of toys. A lot of women are wired that way too. It’s all good. It’s just the way we are.
dan says here: “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.”
And yet he makes ‘his’ true intentions clear on the podcast:
“Not just because of what’s going on at that school but so that administrators, and school boards and superintendents and principals at other high schools” ….
“will think twice about this kind of BS”
“will remember what happened” …. “and think twice”
“We’re going to be in your fucking face principal Wygold and superintendent McNeece”
– from dan Savage’s podcast.
#10 said exactly what I was thinking, except…
DIB, the only thing that should be a concern that your marriage wouldn’t survive as far as this fetish goes, is if he’s violent and/or dangerous about it (or anything else for that matter.) Otherwise, let him have his shoe porn. You can’t control the way a person thinks and if all he’s thinking about during sex is running shoes (or baseball highlights when he’s not ready for it to end), then you don’t have anything to worry about. I am also a woman who learned that very valuable lesson from my husband. I agree that he should be better at covering his tracks, out of respect for you, but don’t let the trivial stuff threaten your marriage.
@63
And your point is?
That Dan has a personal interest in fighting bigotry?
That supporting constance also means opposing stupidity?
That sympathy for the lesbian girl comes with animosity against homophobes? And viceversa?
What is supposed to be your point?
If you’re seeing adouble agenda (supporting constance while secretely opposing discrimination) it only means you’re not a complete dumb fuck.
@63
thanks I was on the fence about this one. But now I see this isn’t a about a teenage girl starved for attention but an actual issue concerning the intolerance and bigotry festering in another one of these american ‘proud-to-be-ignorant’ backwaters.
Just like the soulless administrators that abused me in my own unfortunate high school days, once again it takes someone like you to teach me a valuable lesson that I might not have gotten through countless hours of discourse with the intelligent and caring folks in my circle.
So I thank you.
DIB needs more sympathy; she can’t help feeling what she’s feeling, so let’s stop ridiculing her.
And remember, women aren’t mind readers either – if he only hinted that he thought running shoes were sexy, how does that translate into “ok, I’ll put on a pair next time we have fuck!”
I happen to be with someone who does find sweat pants and workout clothes a turn on, and prefers me in glasses than contacts – but that doesn’t mean I assume it’s a fetish, more so than other kinks, unless he tells me so.
Perhaps DIB is angry because she feels that for the last 11 years, her partner has been directing his true sexuality elsewhere – like the sleazebags who have mistresses because they can’t do the ‘dirty’ things with their partners, so really it’s out of ‘respect’ for them. DIB’s partner was dishonest and disrespectful, treating DIB like a child who couldn’t handle ‘real’ sexuality. She has a right to be upset with him for this; the vanilla-ness of the fetish is beside the point. I’m not saying that porn even close to cheating in any way, but her husband now needs to make a real effort to show that he wants DIB, his wife, in running shoes, not the other women he sees jogging etc. After excluding her from his sexuality for so long she needs some reassurance that it’s not because he just prefers to see other women that her in runners.
@ 38: Thanks for bringing that up, about C.A. considering gradually introducing somehow her titty-flashing-on-the-web-cam fetish up to her husband and see if it can actually bring them closer, and more spicier, sexually.. That is good advice. Thanks 🙂 . Also, @ 53 & 54: 😀 Great stuff, as is the rest of these entries from everyone. Take Care.
C’mon, DIB–running shoes? At least he doesn’t want a latex catsuit. That shit’s expensive.
@63
And your point is?
That Dan supports Constance’s case while secretly opposing biggotry elsewhere?
That Dan was against homophobia EVEN BEFORE he heard of Constance?
That figthing discrimiantion means fighting concrete biggots instead of abstract beings?
That Constance’s fight isn’t ALL about herself?
@ 67: Hi. I think it’s less about wanting to ridicule D.I.B. than it is just trying to figure out how-after eleven years of togetherness-she hasn’t quite figured out her hubby’s likes and dislikes fetish-wise.. You’re right: some people don’t open up and resort to mistresses or lovers rather than just concentrating on what they primarily have.. D.I.B. *may* be coming off a tad melodramatic though. With all due respect to both her and you, her letter doesn’t at all indicate that the husband intended to cheat on her, so why freak out so much then? Even D.I.B. herself acknowleged that she needs to talk to her husband and work it out, so why not get over the worst of the emotionalism, take a deep breath, gather yourself and *try* talking it out with her husband so they both can not only feel better about all of this, but also to both wind up happy somehow?:)
DIB you are guilty of being a) naive, b) irrational, c) melodramatic, and d) generally speaking, an idiot.
First, naive: has it ever occurred to you during the past eleven years that women walk by all day with their cleavage hanging out and their asses poured into form-fitting jeans (or this year’s fashion statement, lycra tights)? And that your husband, being a heterosexual male, probably found that to be a turn-on? Do you honestly think that he has only ever been turned by you, ever? That signing the dotted line on the marriage certificate magically made him blind? Ergo, naive.
Likewise, irrational: as Dan has pointed out, if he was turned on by other womens’ tits (and he was), and attracted to other womens’s legs (and he was), or their eyes (and he was), or big hairdos (okay, maybe not), or whatever…AND THAT DIDN’T BOTHER YOU EXCESSIVELY … why would the shoes bother you so much more? But no: T&A, where you are stuck with competing using what Mother Nature gave you, isn’t even on your radar, but running shoes, which you can lace on at will and be the woman of his dreams, are a huge problem. Ergo, irrational.
Third, melodramatic: to hear you talk, you practically just found out that he is a closeted gay, and your marriage has been a sham. You sound like you think you would have seriously considered calling the wedding off if only…(hand to forehead)…if only you had known. I certainly hope that isn’t the case. If you would have dumped him over something as vanilla as a running shoe fetish, I foresee a divorce in your future over leaving the toilet seat up. Ergo, melodramatic.
Finally, this could be the best thing to ever happen to your sex life. If he has had this fetish the whole time (and he probably has), but has been hiding it from you, that has been the elephant in the room that nobody is allowed to talk about. (At least it has been for him.) Elephants in the room are generally a bad thing for relationships. All that time he has been spending online — which you are so upset over — he could have been spending with you, albeit with a pair of running shoes on. Now you have the opportunity to indulge him in a teeny-tiny vanilla little kink, which will be great for your sex life — or it would be, if you weren’t busy freaking out over it — and here you are, actually thinking your marriage won’t survive this? QED: idiot.
Dan did get one thing wrong: to save your marriage, you don’t forgive HIM. Rather, YOU beg HIS forgiveness for being such a naive, irrational, melodramatic idiot, Then get over yourself. Then go buy a nice, new pair of running shoes, a special pair that you keep clean for the bed.
“…fetishes are to male sexuality what lies are to a Fox News broadcast: likelier to be present than not. “
Love that line.
To DB: Put on your running shoes and fuck the hell out of your husband. You can also let him take your running shoes off, massage your feet, and put them back on. There are so many enjoyable activities for! Do not blow it!
Let me get this straight:
1) a guy finds a particular article of clothing sexy
2) he tells as much to his girlfriend/wife
3) she discovers a porn stash on his computer featuring women in said article of clothing
4) she wants to end their 11 year relationship because of it
She’s either crazy, incredibly naive, or both.
Dumbfounded, your experience is common:
http://www.lemondrop.com/2009/06/03/i-di…
@71 – You’re right, and I believe I agreed with you in my post, that there was no issue of cheating. The issue is where his attention was primarily focused. We’re not talking about just casually being attracted to other people, it’s a whole aspect of himself (and apparently an important aspect) that he’s hidden, and her fears that his *main* attention was on other women. They do need to talk it over honestly, and without the melodrama. Acknowledging your melodramatic emotions as valid can be done in a sensible and non-confrontational way. All I’m saying is that DIB does not deserve 100% of the blame in the situation – that there are things that her husband needs to make amends for as well.
#63… your comparison makes no sense. Dan’s making the same exact point in all of your quotes: that it’s WRONG to discriminate against a girl who wants to take her girlfriend to Prom, and we shouldn’t sit by and let it happen. Yes, the administrators SHOULD think twice about singling out one girl to be beaten up on by an entire class (I mean, whose stupid idea was it to cancel the ENTIRE PROM because of one girl?). That’s the DEFINITION of bullshit. And we as concerned citizens and proponents of human rights SHOULD be getting in these peoples faces for blatant anti-gay hate-mongering. This archaic nonsense should not be tolerated.
Even if you don’t care about the gay-rights issue here, you SHOULD care that this girl is being harassed by the other kids at school. Even you can’t be supportive of bullying, can you?
I tried to email the school board but the message was blocked. I guess they don’t like advice down there. Incidentally, when I used spellcheck on my draft, it wanted to change “McNeece” to “menace”. I will have to snail mail them.
@27
It takes more psychic powers than I have to conclude that she is disgusted by her husband’s fetish. Was there a hint of “my husband thinks running shoes are hot, eww, I want to boil my brain” in the letter? Or was there a hint of “it turns on my husband when I wear running shoes and I never had a problem with that”?
I tried to provide an explanation why some women aren’t comfortable with knowing that their partners ogle other women. Your personal disapproval is unlikely to change how they feel about it.
And yes, who pissed in your cornflakes?
@79:
Tiare, did you even read the letter?
DIB’s husband did tell her about his attraction to running shoes:
“I should also mention that when he told me he thought running shoes are hot”
she thinks it’s icky:
“I feel … creeped out.”
and she can’t handle the fact that he might find other women attractive:
“I thought he meant on me, not on all living and breathing females.”
Savage Love letters don’t get much clearer than this. DIB is naive, prudish, and overly controlling.
I have to agree with amanda34. I think all the hate and insults being thrown at DIB are overreacting. When a man tells me he like sweaters/glasses/jeans/whatever, I assume he just likes the look and I will generally make an effort to wear them around him. I wouldn’t leap to the assumption it’s a *fetish.*
And if a guy did have a fetish and withheld it from me for 11 years of a monogamous relationship, I’d initially feel pretty betrayed too, no matter how tame or wild the fetish was. And I’d be wondering what else was withheld from me.
DIB does need to take some deep breaths and calm down, and I think she will. Freaking out in a letter to Dan is a lot better reaction than freaking out in front of her husband. 11 years of good relationship doesn’t deserve to be tossed for a something so relatively minor, and they can certainly make this mild-mannered fetish work to their benefit.
They certainly need to improve their sex communication skills, though!
But a *fetish* for running shoes? I’m stunned. It’s so harmless it’d almost be disappointing.
I’m a little suprised that more people aren’t commenting about CB’s letter. This 27-year-old presumably healthy man wants to do it every day, yet he asked a woman who’s apparently indifferent to sex to marry him? Why the hell did he do that? Does he have Madonna/Whore syndrome? You know, the belief that women who are really into sex are dirty, disgusting non-monogamous tramps who aren’t good enough to bear children? Otherwise, I just don’t get it. See, it’s not just women who have sexual hang-ups.
As for the the letters that are going to the Itawamba County School Board, they’re beautiful. Perfect way to communicate the message of inclusion and acceptance.
Re DIB: The running shoes are just window dressing here. What’s really going on is the ridiculously unrealistic (but seemingly very common amongst straight women) expectation on DIB’s part that her husband is, has always been, and will always be aroused by her and only her. Can she really be this clueless about male sexuality? In 2010? Somebody buy this woman a ticket to the real world.
Every single hetero SL letter that I’ve ever read (even the one’s with happy endings) make me quite grateful to be gay.
I am thinking DIB and her husband were dating since they were both in their early teens. Anyone who has dated, slept, and fucked around knows that people who like to screw get turned on by things that turn them on regardless of the person. There might by one person out there that only gets turned on by one other person in him/her/it.
Now I am thinking about naked women running. YUM! Does that mean I am cheating on my wife? No, it means I am getting ready to have some wonderful sex with her!
The fact she was snooping on his computer (not “our computer”) betrays the fact that she is an untrusting, judgmental, immature, holier-than-thou, prude.
I could be DIB’s husband…if I were a man.
My husband and I have been together for 11 yrs and I have a serious kink (can’t quite call it a fetish) that I initially only hinted at to get his reaction. After a less than positive reaction, I’ve never mentioned it again.
If he looked at my computer he’d find porn involving my kink but I’ve always been monogamous. Am I really a different person than he thinks I am just because I get turned on by something that he doesn’t understand? I’d like to think that he’d understand and not have DIB’s reaction.
DIB deserves the answer that she got from Dan and the responses that she’s gotten in the comments.
@ 57 : THANK YOU. I’m sick of people telling me what my sexuality is like because I’m a woman. Shut the hell up. Oh, and I’ve met plenty of men who don’t fit the straight male sexuality mold. And no, they’re not gay. End of soapbox.
I get the “pussy/tits” to “running shoes” analogy, but running shoes are way more accessible. Sure, clothing is revealing, but women in American don’t run around with their tits and vulva completely exposed (well, most of the time). But running shoes are everywhere. So I can see why the wife is overwhelmed. Heh, it’s probably overwhelming for the husband!
But I do have hope she will adjust. I’m sure most of it was talking from high emotion. People on here are harsh, jeez.
http://www.runtheplanet.com/community/hu…
Dan, isn’t DIB a plant, a ruse, a fake, a joke? You call ’em regularly. Is is possible that any sane person could be so threatened by a pair of shoes? A faithful shoe fetishist would be well inside the bounds of GGG, no? Unfaithful? Well, 11 years & she ain’t figured that out??
@83 – Yeah, a lot of Dan’s letters make me unhappy to be a straight guy in a similar manner. I seriously don’t know how heterosexuality is even remotely feasible, given the apparent near-total inability of each gender to understand the desires of the other gender.
It’s deeply depressing sometimes.
@80,
Again, I don’t think she was creeped out by the fetish per se. I can totally see her freaking out if she found an extensive collection of photos of asses on his computer and got the impression that he spent a lot of time obsessing over them. (Even if he had previously told her how much her ass is turning him on, and she was pleased to hear it. We have no way of guessing when “that’s hot” means “that’s hot” and when it means “that’s my fetish and I masturbate to it daily”.) When you take a sexual preference to the level of obsession, it’s bound to look creepy no matter if it’s shoes or ass.
We don’t know if it’s really an obsession, but if she thinks it is that explains her reaction. There’s something not so pleasant about the idea that every woman in jeans / running shoes can send your husband into sexual frenzy. There is liking, but then there is liking too much, and she obviously fears that her husband’s liking for running shoes belongs to the “too much” category.
As for the feeling of betrayal, you’re going to feel betrayed if your partner of eleven years hides from you something so important for him, or discloses only partial truth. She didn’t indicate she was upset when he told her she looked hot in sneakers. She’s obviously a Savage Love reader. Do you think she would have really said “no way, sicko” if he had asked her to put on the new pink sneakers next time they’re having sex?
In what way did DIB’s husband ‘hide’ his running shoe fetish? At least the way I’m reading her letter, he TOLD her–well, least hinted at it.
DIB, they’re shoes. Comfy shoes. Not watermelon-sized breasts or a mohawk or wearing a living carpet of bees. It’s doable, inexpensive, and doesn’t require much exertion.
SURE you could end the marriage over this…but that would be really, really silly.
@90
Tiare, trust is a two-way street. If his statement to the effect of “running shoes are hot to me” didn’t elicit a positive (or positive-enough) reaction from DIB, he’s entirely justified in hiding it.
Besides, fetishes rarely exist as fetishes in a vacuum. If he merely liked them, but got a less-than-enthusiastic reaction to that from his wife, the desire would build. For whatever reason, sexual energy seems to be channeled to whatever kink we aren’t getting fulfilled.
But, that kind of boils down to the entire concept of a monogamous partnership: giving each other as much fulfillment as possible, making it unnecessary to enjoy other women or men. Lemme put it this way:
If her response to his statement that he likes sneakers was to start wearing them around him more, even offering to keep them on while doing sexual things, or dressing naked in only her sneakers, I’d bet dimes to dollars he wouldn’t have looked elsewhere. The feelings either would have died down, or he’d simply have been satisfied.
I suppose the point I’m trying to make is that satisfying your partner’s kinks shouldn’t come down to “if he insists”. Otherwise, you get to sleep in the bed of “he’ll get it behind my back”. He gave the pretty big hint of “I like this”. And she chose not to explore it to see just how far it went.
And, not for nothing, but the whole “not so pleasant” idea that he’d be sent into a sexual frenzy by other women is bullocks. ‘Cause that’d be true if he was being blue-balled with vanilla sex, as well. Or do you not think a boyfriend denied sexual gratification isn’t going to start getting turned on by other women. News flash: if you make sure your boyfriend (or girlfriend) is completely drained and has fulfilled all his or her kinks, they won’t need to look anywhere else.
And, by the way, there’s a world of difference between “you look hot in sneakers” (which can easily just be taken as a compliment: you really look hot like that), rather than as a statement of desire in a kink (sneakers look really hot). Her imagination filled in the motivation of what he was saying; she assumed he meant that something about the combination of her and sneakers was hot, not that sneakers and women in general were hot. She seemed disgusted that he liked the object, rather than the specific woman with it.
DIB:
Dan’s suggestion is one I agree with wholeheartedly. I would take it a step further: embrace his kink. Not necessarily always, set limits, but give him what he’s been trying to replace in the internet. I’ll bet you every dime I have that if you gave him ample satisfaction of the kink, he’d never feel the need to visit those sites.
Or accept that his kink is a bridge too far, and that he’s going to get his rocks off with another woman’s foot in mind.
I think people are busy getting so self-righteous about kinks that they’re forgetting that DIB is wondering what other important things her husband may have held back from her for 11 years. Especially something as simple as running shoes. ‘Hints’ are not telling someone straight out, fyi.
and @85, you really need to tell your husband. keeping him in the dark about what you need is infantalising him. treat him like an adult and have a real conversation.
@92, women (and indeed romantic partners in general) aren’t mind readers.
Add me to the (short?) list of people who think DIB is a troll. He TELLS her about his fetish, she brushes it off, then she discovers–OMG! he has a FETISH?! How could he LIE to me?! I feel PHYSICALLY SICK over the fact that my husband is a HETEROSEXUAL MALE with a HARMLESS KINK.
Bull. Shit.
@92,
That’s a very good point. Even if she’s right about the extent of his obsession, that doesn’t mean there’s nothing she can do about it (unless he does have that madonna/whore issue and really doesn’t want to introduce her to his kink)
“Real oppression is having someone come to your house in the middle of the night, put a bag over your head, and torture you at an undisclosed location for years and years and years because you weren’t at the Party meeting last Thursday. “
@42 you can always say that there are worse things and that somebody’s problems are ridiculous. Like, this person you describe could have been made to watch his kids being tortured. That’s really a dead-end tactic. Just because this girl was not beaten or raped or something doesn’t mean she has no right to complain.
I’ve always had a major sneaker fetish since grade school. I can remember
in Catholic grade school, in uniform (black trousers, white shirts)..
after sweaty gym class … and some ‘trouble-making’ boys would leave their sneakers on, instead of putting their dress shoes back on, for class.
For some reason, that wrecked me. I could not stop staring. At their shoes.
Either I wanted them, or I wanted the sneakers, or a combination of the two. (probably both)
Warped for life.
But in my life, I’ve had a 17 year relationship, and then a 10-year one, so I must not be that damaged.
however it was always no
problem (i have found) to ask a gay guy to leave his converse hi tops on while he screws you to the wall.. they love it!
He should leave her, for breach of privacy at least, and then spooge in her shoes.
sr
@tiare: I don’t think that she’s creeped out by his fetish either. I think that she’s oh-my-stars-and-garters offended by the realization that her husband is turned on by someone that isn’t her.
Which seems to me to be even more stupid than being offended by a harmless kink. If there’s anything that pleases me more than knowing that this idiot is having a conniption at the idea that she’s not the only thing with a twat that her husband has an eye for, it’s knowing that when she ruins their marriage and they divorce, she’ll spend the rest of her miserable little life trying to find a man who is incapable of being turned on by a woman who isn’t her.
Be careful when you write as if you are negative from the start they won’t read your letter. I’ve based my letting not siding with them, but sympathising their beliefs, and then letting them know why they are backward. Here’s my letter:
To whom it may concern,
I am writing from a small town in the desert of Western Australia. I am practicing Catholic, I attend church at least once a week with a family that has been Catholics for generations, and I am a female heterosexual Professional Engineer who is engaged. And with that background, which is sure to be very different from the other letters you have received, most of which I hope are not abusive or cause offense, I am writing to discuss the decision to cancel the Itawamba Agricultural High School Prom.
I understand that the decision was made by those who though it was in the best interests of the high school students, a decision influenced by Christian beliefs based the Holy Bible; Beliefs that they hold because it is all that they know is right, beliefs passed down from previous generations.
However, if those people also read other parts of the Holy Bible, they will notice that the passages about women which contradict what most Christians believe now. I could quote endless passages that cover topics such as a good wife will serve every need of her husband, a good wife will take care of the home and children with no help from the husband, a good husband would involve their wife to work or to assist with his monetary affairs, and so on. Now do you agree with this? I’m sure you would not, or if you do, most other Christians would not. In fact, would you not be disappointed if your child said that someone was a bad wife and mother because they were working to pay the bills? We look at the discrimination women used to face, and still face in some industries as I do personally, and think in disbelief “Why it was so?”, “Why were they sexist?” Most people now, myself included, do not have respect for those that were discriminated, even though it was a social, cultural and religious norm.
I ask; if that is what the Holy Bible specifically states, why is it not followed? Many scholars agree that the Holy Bible is written in terms of morals, not facts. One example is the tale about the Holyman who, through prayer, spoke ill of the tax man who was praying next to him, whereas the tax man was asking for forgiveness. The moral was not that we should insult a taxman through prayer, but that we should not judge others and strive not to be vain. Chapter One of Genesis in the Old Testament does not mean that the world was created in exactly 7 days. It’s a way to explain that the good we see in our Earth is God’s doing. The importance of the Holy Bible is that it is a story of morals, not fact.
In addition, there was discrimination to many Christians that was not from passages in the Holy Bible, but was accepted as the norm. The best example was discrimination of race and colour in Australia that happened before the equal rights movement became accepted. My own father was a victim of this. He attended a Catholic school as an Italian, with many others of different background; European, Irish, Asian, Aboriginal and Australian. His classes were segregated; the white Australian’s were in one set of classes, the white Irish were in another set of classes, and the remaining students, regardless if they were born in Australia, were kept apart. This segregation happened everywhere in Australia. From what I have learnt of history, segregation also happened in churches in the United States of America. We also look back at this in shock, do we not? We think “how could they be so racist?” But it was a social, cultural and religious norm.
I have given you two examples of discrimination that in the past was accepted but now we look back in shame. In the past, Christian’s believed that racism and sexism was normal, that it was not so, but now certainly do not. They were beliefs that Christians look back on in embarrassment. And we are about to face it again; the discrimination of people with non-heterosexual sexual orientation will be the next embarrassment. Of course, at the moment Christian leaders will not say otherwise; because it is what they believe is right from what they have learnt from previous generations, just as they did with racism and sexism in the past. But why did those beliefs change? Because people fought for their rights, against what was preached. Eventually, what is preached in regards to sexual orientation will change; it already is. And those who do not start to accept that discrimination for sexual orientation is wrong are going to be the people our children will be ashamed of when learning about this equal rights battle in the future. You are facing a choice, to discriminate or follow what is being preached. I have made my choice; I will not follow. Because I will not make the same mistakes of those Christians who were racist and sexist, and I will continue to fight against the norms so that I can be seen with pride, not shame, from future generations.
Jesus said to love your neighbour as you would want to be loved. That is the biggest moral of all, which is what set the Christians apart and is the base of all our beliefs. If you would not like to experience racism, sexism, discrimination against your age, because of a disability, or from anything else, why do you discriminate? If you love everyone, you love as Jesus loves.
God bless,
Queen of the Desert
Aren’t fetishes just a part of sexuality in general rather than “male sexuality”? Women do have them too, you know.
I’ve written an email to the school !
@93 You’re right, hints aren’t telling people outright but they can be a way of gauging someone’s reaction to something that you’re embarrassed about or have found in the past that people don’t understand.
My husband’s reaction might be different if I told him outright that I have this kink but after a lifetime of being embarrassed by it I find that no matter how hard I try I can’t tell this hyper clean, ultra respectful, conservative, and wonderful man that I want him to piss on me. He knows everything about me but this, which is why it never occurred to me that DIB’s husband was hiding anything other than his shoe fetish.
Is DIB’s real problem the fact that her husband’s idea of a fantasy isn’t having sex with his wife, missionary-style, with the lights off and one sad votive candle burning somewhere?
I entirely support the aim of the ‘Let Constance take her Girlfriend to Prom’ campaign – but I think you’re going about it the wrong way. You say to be respectful – but in the same breath, accuse the school board of being bigots. While that may well be true, I can’t speak for you but I know if someone starts an argument by calling me names, I’m very unlikely to say “Hey, you know what – I was being bigoted – let’s fix that”. Using provocative, angry language makes it very easy to categorise any criticism as “crazy person” – and ignore it.
The Itawamba County School Board should reverse their decision – not because it’s proved to be a distraction – but because it’s simply wrong.
By emulating the mass calling/letter writing campaigns of the crazy “family values” types, you push people towards more risk averse behaviour. Other school boards in Mississippi won’t look on and think “We had better let the queer kids come to prom” but rather “We’d better avoid any situations like this in the first place”. Which could mean more pre-emptively cancelled proms for everyone – or any events where teenagers might pair off (or whatever the poly-equivalent of pairing off is called).
Big, noisy, hateful campaigns are what *they* do. And we’re better than that.
I’d suggest letting the ACLU do their important work, and get your readers and listeners to focus on telling the world the positive story of why it’s the right thing to do. Collect stories from other queer couples, or parents of queer children, about their Prom experiences – both good and bad. And how the world hasn’t ended as a result.
Appeal for donations, publish a collection of the above stories, so that Constance can throw her own “Private” prom in Fulton which will welcome all the students in the community, whether they’re gay, straight or bigoted. Exploit your celebrity friends to secure the most awesome night of entertainment, that will blow out of the water any tedious alternative that the “moral” members of the community might put on. Make her a hero to her peers for bringing [Insert name of popular band here] to their town.
It’s right to be angry about injustice like this. But to emulate the blustery outrage of the right doesn’t make the progressive/gay rights movement look good – it’s all fuel for their “the gays are coming to steal your children” fantasies.
Better to show them, and all of the unengaged people in the middle, that we’re constructive, not hate-filled, and capable of making a positive impact on their communities.
Big fan. All the best
Chris
(I’m the UK – we don’t get to have proms at all…)
Man, running shoes? I wish I had a guy into running shoes; I’d never have to wear anything else! God, what if I got a man who was into crossdressing and high heels? I look terrible in a dress, and I can’t walk in heels!
Poor guy, that he’s been made to believe his totally vanilla fetish is something to be ashamed of. I could understand his partners’ squicking if he was into scat or waterplay, since those can come off a little on the extreme side (I got lucky, like the second relationship I was in was into that, so I was de-sensitized to the possibility early), but seriously? Running shoes? RUNNING SHOES?
I don’t have a running shoe fetish myself, but think of all the fun that could be had: going running togther and ending up somewhere secluded for a bit of outdoor action. Coming home sweaty from a solo run and taking everything off but the shoes while he watches. Taking him shoe shopping. Watching ‘What Women Want’ together. Re-enacting Apple’s 1984 commercial. Playing kiss-chasey.
#8 totally nails it – DIB’s husband just handed her a gold ticket to sexual pleasure. If she doesn’t take it up he should just dump her and find a girl who likes running…
I had no sex drive for years until I stopped taking the pill last month. Before going on the pill I had always been horny as hell, but after starting it, playing with my pussy had about the same effect as rubbing my elbow (not having an elbow rubbing fetish, this amounted to little sensation at all). Oral sex was pointless. I’m still with the same partner I was with while I was on the pill, and he’s always indulged my fantasies and kinks when I wanted to have sex. I can’t get enough sex now (God, oral is the best thing of all time, anal is better than ever, and I can come manually without the aid of a vibrator). The only variable that’s changed is the fact that I’ve gone off of the pill. I don’t think most people realize how detrimental it can be to some women’s libidos. I certainly had no idea-I thought it was my antidepressant all along. I know a lot of guys don’t give a second thought to the woman in the relationship taking control of bc by popping the pill, especially since every guy I’ve ever known hates condoms,but maybe they should try another form of bc and see if that helps with the libido problem. I don’t know if the girlfriend mentioned in CB’s letter is on it or not, but if so, try going off of it! Seriously, do you think her boyfriend would rather bag it or have sex so infrequently that it drives him out of his mind?
10 FTMFW
Lighten up lady! Just because you’re married does NOT mean your husband will NEVER find any other woman aside from you attractive, and for you to suggest as much is ridiculous.
Loosen up the leash a little! If he loves you, he will NOT leave the porch.
@97 agree just because we don’t live under a brutal totalitarian regime or struggle for the basic amenities like food and shelter doesn’t mean our problems should be marginalized. However some people’s problems don’t necessarily merit national attention and million fag marches, and I was just looking for a little more info and motivation on this issue than cable news can provide before I joined the call to arms. The jesus freak idiot @63 got me off the fence and into the game and the Itawamba school system has received several phone calls from a southern gentleman named Danny Butterman who is concerned about the apparent proliferation of ‘dem durn queers’ at Itawamba Agricultural.
Don’t throw the husband out because he has a harmless fetish! Instead, use it! Indulge him by wearing (a new) pair of running shoes to bed now an again. You will have a devoted lover for the rest of your life. It will be worth it. Trust me!
“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.”
That made my morning, thank you Mr. Savage. Still the king!
i’ve heard about this prom thing, but i don’t quite understand– straight girls who couldn’t get dates have been going to prom with their chick buddies since proms were invented. the only way i can imagine it would have become an issue if constance’s girlfriend is _not_ a member of the high school senior class. is that so? is she from a different school and/or a different grade? i really would like that point clarified, because if they’re both in the senior class, i can’t see how this possibly became an issue, or why constance would even have to “ask” to attend with her in the first place.
@96
I kind of doubt that he’s falling into the madonna/whore paradox. If he were, he wouldn’t have mentioned it in the first place. It seems like this is more the wife’s hang-up than his.
If she’d said to herself “he likes running shoes, so by god I’ll wear running shoes”, this never would have come up. She blanched at his desires, didn’t fulfill them, and is shocked that he found another source. Assuming she’s a good sexual partner, rather than a selfish bitch, I think she would have embraced his desires if she had the stomach for it.
What she wants, fundamentally, is the right to say “that’s freaky, I won’t do it, and I don’t want you getting turned on by other women”. She wants the moral authority to reject outright the kink itself, and to be able to put him in a fetish chastity belt permanently.
The more I think about her letter, the less it reads like a legitimate plea for help, and the more it reads like her wanting to be given permission to give him the crappiest ultimatum ever.
@94
It doesn’t take mind-reading, just paying attention. If the only way we can reasonably be expected to understand our partner’s needs is if they specifically spell them out, we’d all be royally fucked in terms of having relationships.
We’d have to have bloody contracts (or verbal equivalence), stipulating everything we’re looking for. So, if DIB gets a pass on not taking “I like running shoes” as more than a comment in passing, do I get to take “our anniversary is coming up” as nothing more than small-talk? How can I know my girlfriend wants flowers, a nice night out, all that jazz?
A good relationship isn’t about giving your partner everything he or she asks for, it’s about understanding what he or she is trying not to have to ask for. Especially in kinks, life is like this. Once he hinted, it was up to the wife to ask (either enthusiastically or at least interestedly) what he meant, what he likes about them, and what she can do for him. If my girlfriend says she likes having her feet played with, it’s not up to her to tell me what she wants, it’s up to me to ask and try things to make sure she enjoys herself. And it’s always better to overshoot. Take her statement of interest to the greatest degree possible, and let them tell you less is better.
Relationships work best when both partners are doing everything within their power to maximize the enjoyment of the other.
@113
Two issues:
1. Dress code. She wanted to come in a tuxedo, rather than the more traditional prom dress. The school gets to decide what is appropriate dress for extracurricular activities; in the same way I couldn’t go to prom in a velvet ball gown (even if it wouldn’t have been horrible looking).
2. There’s actually a policy from the Board of Education against bringing homosexual dates to prom. It’s stupid, but it’s there, and may pass constitutional muster. The difference, I believe, is in that she wanted to bring a female “friend” as a “date” rather than just going stag in a group. Though, it may be that the girlfriend was a different age, or from another school, and so had to be approved of as a “date” in order to gain entrance.
Here is what i sent to the fine administrators of the Itawamba school system;
I just finished reading “The Help” about racial bigotry in Mississippi in the 60’s. The book ended on a hopeful note as people became empowered with the knowledge that their lives had value and they could positively impact others to help create a world of educated, tolerant like minded people. I find it very interesting as a 47 year old straight conservative father of 4 that there are still areas in this country that promote the concepts of hatred and intolerance of those that are different from the people in power. But look where you are.
What message are you sending to all the students who are denied their prom? Certainly young Constance will emerge a stronger more powerful person as she realizes the unconditional love offered by millions who support her. Dare I say as Jesus himself loves her? So you have unwillingly and unwittingly furthered the social cause of those you seek to oppress. Congratulations. And of course the student body that looks to their leaders as role models will now misdirect their anger at losing their prom toward a segment of society that had nothing to with the cancellation of the event. You are promoting hatred and intolerance in direct opposition to true christian behavior.
It is not my place to judge, nor is it yours. And you have the rest of your life to come to terms with it. Good luck to the people of Mississippi and your charges specifically.
@48, very good point. This fetish could be seriously threatening to someone who is the opposite of athletic. And that could qualify as a fetish that automatically excludes her like race, a la #30.
@60 – really? The hardons end when the women are over 40? I’d better not tell those boys following me around that I’m 46.
DIB’s husband “had in the past hinted at the fact that it turns him on”. Since she didn’t indulge his fetish or inquire further, then he, quite reasonably, stopped discussing the topic. Otherwise DIB would have written about how her husband keeps shoving it in her face despite her lack of interest !
Lies are the raison d’etre of a Fox News broadcast. Also, I’m disappointed about the complete failure to reference the joke about the difference between pygmies and a girls track team.
Yay! No annoying cryptic messages today.
DIB sounds ridiculous- running shoes? wow.
CB- yeah, check if she’s on the pill- maybe that’s why no sex drive.
CA- That sounds like fun, gonna have to check that site out!
I already sent Ms. McNeece an e-mail. It was respectful. I respectfully called her a scumbag for putting a 17-year-old girl in a position to be harassed, bullied and potentially physically harmed. Which she is.
Don’t forget to hit them in the pocketbook as well.
I’ve just informed the Mississippi tourist board that I have canceled my trip to Biloxi this summer. My friends are bummed, but are coming here to Oregon instead. So, not only does Mississippi lose tourist dollars, Oregon gains tourist dollars! Double whammy!
Were you planning a trip that you have canceled because of this mess? Will you refuse to travel there as a result of the Itawamba school district’s actions?
E-mail to: tourdiv@mississippi.org
Constance is going to be on Ellen tomorrow!
Im a GGG bi girl whose been open to threesomes! casts! pissing! Im turned on by hearing my partner talk about who else he flirts with/checks out/is attracted to in real life (all kinds!). I jerk it daily to stuff in my head. I balk at being called a square.
My dirty little secret? Porn generally freaks me out. Im a skinny little shit and my type mostly seems to equal the lithping lolita kid, when acting like that in bed seems totally counter to my sexuality. The idea that non-quasi-pedo dudes just want a huge pair of tits makes me feel pretty crap about my body, and more a propos!
the ratwheel of disposable chicks, the hundreds of thousands of relatable, vulnerable looking babes that you can rate, reject and demean over the leisure hours, withOUT a counterpart for the girls to level the playing field, does freak me out to think about. hobby porn has always bugged me since i was a twelve year-old with computer-clueless older brothers.
get over it? i cant, so i always have a dont ask dont tell porn clause in relationships. look at it, that’s the norm, that’s what stimulates your story grind or your boner or whatever, but everytime it’s been brought up, or i’ve stumbled upon the auto google searches, i have felt upset and depressed. thought a reaction a lot like DIBs. repressed i’d like to think im not, insecure maybe, but as much of a _fact_ of male sexuality that porn might be, there’s also a long and varied tradition of women being upset by porn. it might not be straightup prudishness, but the fact that we dont have any representation of a tradition to call our own – what’s out there is pretty bleak.
and, as other ladies have said, it’s not because we aren’t “visual creatures”.
to be clear: cheers to the women who arent freaked out by it, who love it, embrace it, etc.
just saying there are more than a few like me where watching porn together is a more depressing suggestion than a foursome.
@123
In general, I agree with your statements. We shouldn’t do anything to make our partner(s) feel uncomfortable. And, the sometimes-abusive nature of much of pornography can be disconcerting to women.
But, that said, there has to be an outlet. Especially if it’s a fetish thing, pornography is taking the place of fulfillment within the relationship. If I’m into footplay, but my girlfriend finds it disgusting, I’m much more likely to go to porn than give it up. But if her reaction were “hell yes, let’s do it”, the porn wouldn’t be necessary.
It even makes sense that a girlfriend/wife would like to be able to ignore (on some level) her boyfriend/husband’s appreciation of other women. In DIB’s case, though, the issue is that she simply won’t give him what he can get from other women.
My thing, I guess, is this: I’d rather get a footjob from my girlfriend than some random other girl. But if my girlfriend won’t do that, while I won’t cheat, I will get that itch scratched. Either fulfill his fantasies, or don’t be surprised if he does that on his own.
The same works in reverse, of course, so don’t think I’m just about men being happy.
Dear Ms. McNeece,
I am writing to express my dismay at the decision to cancel the prom
at Itawamba Agricultural High School over something as trivial as who
attends prom with whom (or, put another way, what one student claims
to feel about another student with whom he or she attends prom).
Racism, sexism, and other prejudicial condemnations based on someone’s inalienable characteristics are wrong because they are inaccurate. And they are immoral because, being wrong, they stand as impediments to seeking the Truth.
What are your students learning from this decision?
I urge you to reverse the decision, reinstate the prom, and permit each student to attend it with whomever he or she chooses. Furthermore, admitting that the decision to cancel prom was morally wrong could serve as a lifelong lesson to your students. Rather than being ridiculed by people across the country and the world (as is currently the case), you could be venerated as an example of someone who turned away from bigotry in favor of tolerance. What a legacy that would be!
Best regards,
Brad Howard
cf: Luke 7:37-50; John 8:1-11
Stamped, addressed and written on fancy stationary. I’d douse it with Chanel #5 if I could afford it and thought it would help.
Like two girls dancing together, one of them in atypical clothes, is all that unusual for a prom. And I doubt that a school this uptight wouldn’t have chaperones around to make sure that no couple did more than dance.
(Darn; I spelled “chaperon” wrong. Stupid handwriting with no delete key…)
Keep fuckin’ that chicken, commenters. Constant repetition, that’s the key.
I appreciate what you’re doing here with the Itawamba thing, and I trust that it is an appropriate response. Nonetheless, I am troubled that your entire representation of the other side of the story is a single-word quote. I intend to do just as you have asked, but I also intend to find out more about what the other side is saying first. If nothing else, it will make for a more informed and reasonable objection. I expect that research will reveal no surprises, but in spite of respecting the spirit of your call-to-arms, I have to bluntly say I don’t respect your methods. Too tea-baggy for my taste—be responsible and arm your readers with more information before you light the torches, eh?
I sent an email to Ms. McNeece. (I’m a gay dude) I was respectful, but frank. I did demand that she issue a public apology admitting that she/they are wrong in their thoughts and actions, otherwise their younger generations will never learn and America will forever have possum fucking billy goats from the south running amuck and chasing down anything that moves with a chain saw. Can I add that I love the south and its food and Paula Dean? I do, but obviously it has a past and it has issues, as do we all. But change is the goal.
Also, I agree with everyone that DIB is crying over spilled milk…spilled by naked ladies in running shoes. lol. But really, what is the bfd? 11 years? so what. “Um, Hi my name is Marge and I am recently divorced because my husband has a thing for running shoes and he waited 11 years to tell me about it.” Wake up ya douche.
DIB – seriously? You are a reader of Dan Savage, and yet you think your reaction to your husband’s fetish for *running shoes* is somehow rational? I see a lot of debate over whether DIB’s reaction is based on the fetish itself, the fact it was hidden for 11 years, or the fact that it involves other women. The way I see it, it doesn’t matter which option it is, DIB is still being reactionary and unrealistic.
DIB’s husband didn’t hide his fetish, she says he’s “hinted” at it before. Most people are pretty damn shy about their fetishes, especially if the person they’re dating hasn’t expressed any kink of their own. Dan’s spot on when he says that if someone’s “hinted” that something turns them on, that it REALLY turns them on. This applies whether the person is male or female – for most people, it takes a lot to break down cultural conditioning and even suggest that something outside the norm might turn their crank. The fact that they’re able to do it suggests that a raging boner or moisty is driving them to the admission. DIB knew her husband hinted at it, yet her reaction was to ignore his hints and hope they go away. Even if she thought that his hints meant he only liked her in running shoes (right, that’s realistic), why wouldn’t she try to indulge that more?
Given this, does it really surprise her that she found him looking at pictures of ladies in running shoes? In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if, either consciously or subconsciously, he left clues on his computer because after 11 years together, he really wanted her to get the hint but was too worried to do it by direct confrontation. She needs to adjust to the fact that everyone everywhere is attracted to other people, and that men in particular will enjoy looking at other people. This is never going to change. But just as nothing can fully replace porn in a man’s life, nothing can come close to the value of a partner that will fully indulge your fetish in real time. So while he will never stop admiring other women in Nikes, simply looking will never compare to the joy he’d experience in actually getting to do sexy things to his Nike-wearing wife.
For them to be together for so long, one presumes their relationship is fairly stable – she herself didn’t mention any other problems. For her to react this way over one of the least offensive fetishes I’ve ever heard of blows my mind. If their relationship really has been good, she needs to get the fuck off her high horse and put on some damn running shoes.
I hid a whole complex of fetishes from my wife not for 11 years, but more than 40 years, because I was afraid that the only woman who ever loved me and had been my best friend would leave me once she learned about the “real” me and that I had “lied” to her for all that time.
My fetishes, which demolished much of my potential when I was 13 or 14, aren’t illegal, except perhaps in Mississippi, but they are definitely NOT vanilla. If I had not entered my fetish closet on the first day that I gave in to my compulsions, I never would have had a friend, a girlfriend, or a job, much less a wife, family, and career.
I told my wife about my fetishes less than two years ago. I had been in counselling for about a year, “for stress.” After finally revealing my fetishes to my psychologist, she was able to convince me that I was not the only person in the entire Universe who got off on my particular “perversions,” and that what I did privately need have no bearing on my public life. However, I was so tired and stressed from hiding my fetishes from my wife that I just had to tell her about them, regardless of the consequences.
It was a memorable conversation. When I finished explaining my fetishes, in broad strokes rather than the unappetizing details, she first expressed amazement that I had been able to hide them from her for all those years, and then said, “So, was there anything else you wanted to tell me? I’ve got some other things I need to do.”
I had a lot more to say, but the cat was out of the bag and my marriage was intact. We’ve had many conversations over the months since then, and our marriage (and sex) is better than ever. Oh yes, there’s one book that helped us both in better understanding me, the same book that Dan has just recommended: The Other Side of Desire, by Daniel Bergner.
I’m not out of the fetish woods yet, and never will be. But I’ve made a lot of progress, thanks in large part to my wife, who is smart enough to realize that people are complex beyond imagination and that a good relationship depends on the ability to suspend judgement and to assume that you can always learn something new about the people closest to you, and about yourself.
Dan, you’ve got no clue about marriage, and you show it over and over again. I’ve been happily and monogamously married for some years, and several children, and my wife has far less enthusiasm for sex than I do, and only wants fast and vanilla, but that’s not all there is in life, and we’re overworked and tired anyway, so I live with it, because one has to live with lots of shit that one doesn’t like, and it’s all the better if there’s something good thrown in with it, which there is in this case. You’d make a shitty husband.
He already is a shitty husband. ;D
Thanks for bringing attention to Constance Mcmillen. I am down in Portland and had not heard anything about it. I followed your lead and Emailed the school district.
Keep up the good work
This has been a great thread of discussion, all of this. Thanks everyone for some good reads! D.I.B.: just lighten;) ^up^ and have fun with your hubby and just Be already, you know? The second one with the friend & his fiance’: they’ll figure it out after a while that gettin’ married wasn’t such a bright idea and Chatroulette lady is three weeks away from porno 😉 lol. Constance? F*** ’em. Go to your prom and just bring a knife. Keith Richards would do that;) lol. Spring Is Here Again;).
I’m curious:
So, would we have any sympathy for DIB if she were a double-below-ankle amputee?
Or if the genders were reversed??
However, gotta agree with other minority opinion here: WTF was she doing snooping on his computer? – thereby giving him cause to have trust issues, and write his own “my wife of 11 years sneaks around checking computer files, I don’t think I can trust her again,*” letter to Dan.
*- “and I just bought her some sweet running shoes, too”
Call to Itawamba principal made. I’m happy to work the phones for you any time, Dan. You never fail to rock.
Hmmm…”Didn’t Cover His Tracks Very Well”…”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 physically sick to my stomach knowing that I didn’t really know who he was all this time.”
What self-absorbed crap. I’d say that DIB’s husband would probably be better off without the snooping, reality-show-mentality wench and maybe should find himself a fellow kinksterette with a nice running shoe collection.
Why-o-why did Constance McMillen even ask permission? Why-o-why didn’t she just show up at the damned prom with her *friend*? Who gives a shit who she goes to the prom with? But when you ask permission, you have to be prepared to hear “no”. Just don’t ask.
@140 Because she knew the school district already had a standing ban on homosexual couples at prom and if she had just shown up with her girlfriend and in a tux she wouldn’t have been allowed in. She asked permission because it was a polite way of letting the school authorities know that she’d be coming with her girlfriend.
DIB: i understand how, after 11 yrs, you feel betrayed; i believe that’s the real reason you’re creeped-out. But honestly, come down off your high horse and indulge your husband – please. From here on out, sex could get infrequent and adding some zest doesn’t hurt. Just think if it was a bustier or a pair of sexy bikini panties he was fetishing about… what’s the difference? Get counselling for your 11 yr *betrayal* and then enjoy your husband. …and stop snooping on his computer!
@141 …i said “don’t ask” because, having prior knowledge of what the school’s position was should have cued Constance to NOT ask. Why tempt others to think they can try to control your future? She should have just gone to the prom and met her g/f there. No asking permission. This is 2010.
@ 143
It’s a bummer to be returned from your own prom (or told at the entrance that you can come in but your date can’t) so it’s understandable why she didn’t want to risk it. And maybe her gf isn’t attending the same school, so she wasn’t able to meet her there.
Toews:The act of boring a new hole in a human being solely for fucking it with your penis.3 ways to use toews.1 Allan toews more than he should.2 I toewed that fucker!3 Forget about Meisja’s mouth,vag and ass.I toewed her! James Schenk Silver Spring,Maryland
Oh please, this isn’t the 1950’s. We ALL male and female enjoy “looking” from time to time. There’s nothing wrong with looking so long as you’re not being too obvious about it. It’s human nature to enjoy the view.
Do you really think that if Hugh Jackman’s perfect butt walked by me in tight jeans I wouldn’t have a good, discreet look, and that my current guy wouldn’t know it, grin about it, and tease me? Of course I would. Of course he would and we’d have a good laugh about it.
So your man has a fetish for women in sneaks. Okay, you can look at it in two ways. One, you can get all wound up and see every woman he looks at in sneaks as competition or two, you can recognize his little obsession for what it is, a small kink, indulge him at home by wearing your sneaks in bed sometimes and let it go at that.
If you are smart you’ll do the latter, indulge him.
Looking isn’t touching.
A person’s libido doesn’t automatically turn off the day they go monogamous. Male or female you still respond sexually to other people sometimes. That’s sexual biology 101.
When I am committed to someone I always make it very clear that we have an understanding. We can both look all we want, fantasize all we want, but we don’t touch, period. We save up that sexual energy, take it back home and find a way to dissipate it that we will both enjoy.
Fantasy keeps the libido alive. So long as your guy isn’t actually having clandestine sex with all those women in running sneakers you’ve got nothing to worry about.
Do yourself a favor. Go out and buy yourself a bunch of really cool sneaks, including some of those silly ones with high heels. Your man will love you for it and you will certainly reap the benefits of doing so time and time again.
It’s a small kink and an easy one to fulfill so GO for it, and stop worrying so much about whether or not he’s “looking” at the women he sees in sneaks. So long as that looking leads to wild, sneaker wearing sex with YOU then it’s all good for both of you!
Enjoy!
I just told them that the Bible also says that they shouldn’t fuck their siblings, but they don’t let that stop them.
Dear Dumbfounded in Brooklyn
I feel your consternation for I too found out my (ex)husband:
1. Also spends large number of hours jacking off with the computer
(which explains why he is unwilling to pick up the kids from school, etc.)
2. Led me into marriage with him fully knowing this was a huge part of his life, but alas I knew (close to) nothing.
3. Chose to lead a separate secret life over intimacy with his spouse.
I also question why he didn’t trust me to reveal this side of himself, leading to self doubt (am I not trustworthy? Judgemental?) I now believe he made this choice NOT BECAUSE HE WAS EMBARRISED, but because SECRECY IS PART OF HIS THRILL.
Yes, he chose porn over me. You are joining the club. DIB, after eleven years you found one secret; there are more, but do you want to know? Does he stop for a quickie at the strip club on the way to the store? Do they know him by name at the neighborhood liquor store? Just how does he launder his money and lingerie? My own confusion and depression over finding the secrets and disgusting stuff led me to adopt the US Military’s policy of “Don’t ask, Don’t tell.” It was my strategy for keeping my head buried in the sand.
Face it DIB. The foundation of your marriage is based on deceit. Your husband knows this because he built it. He knew your relationship was being built over a bed of quicksand and he never bothered to tell you. Do you really believe it is up to you to save this marriage?
My advice differs from Mr. Dan Savage’s. Dan ponders “if you actually ever loved him” which is a good point. My guess is that you do love the person your spouse pretended to be. He never bothered in eleven years to show you who he really is. So maybe in fact you don’t love this self absorbed deceiving perverted lying jerk.
Mr. Savage also addresses you as Prudie. This insinuates that your husband’s obsessions are normal while your repulsions of them are not. Society has norms. You, my dear are within them, your husband is not. Erstwhile, explain the secrecy. His secrets have now become your secrets. His shame is now yours. For some unexplainable turn, he is not the embarrassed one with loss of dignity, you are.
Forgive him and make your marriage work? Your husband spends “large numbers of hours a week” indulging his perverse desires. Does he spend anywhere near the same number of hours weekly saving HIS marriage? During his off time, are you in his thoughts? How hard can you work saving something while your husband is working diligently to destroy it? Because I’ve “been there, done that”, let me tell you how it went for me and will probably go for you.
Counseling, he promises to change, to stop lying, you have small children, you want to believe him, you stay in the marriage. Fast forward three years or so—-You find out the only thing that has changed is his hiding places. He has been lying and deceiving you all along again, silly you.
Another counselor—oh, this one tells you it is all your fault for what? Not being accepting or being prudish, for what maybe wanting the first run of his sexual desire??? Anyway, it’s your fault. But again, he makes promises, you have school aged children, a mortgage, a passable relationship…..
A few more years…… Do you really think anything has changed? Only your self confidence and sanity have dwindled, because you are never sure when he is telling the truth. Do you smell alcohol on his breath? What did you find under his car seat that made your stomach turn? Are you imagining things? Did you really want to spend your life looking the other way? Your husband doesn’t look at you with desire, his desire is already spent with the shoe catalog.
Acquaintances ask if you are really married, they’ve never seen your husband. He doesn’t accompany you to events, he uses that time to jack off with his paper friends.
Maybe some man will sense your loneliness, maybe you will have an affair. He is the catalyst. You remember what it feels like to be important to your lover. Now look, you have been unfaithful and ruined a perfectly good marriage. This will be the message the children get. Your husband will want to save the marriage. Counseling!! He’ll change, he’ll stop lying! He is a hero! Maybe you are just finally fed up with his bullshit. My, your reservoir was deep, but it is finally full.
As a single woman, you may find that Mr. Dan Savage is correct in stating that shoot, men are just like this. Because others will deceive you, trick you, tell you they love you, want to marry you, and if you are fortunate or maybe a little smarter this time around, you will find out that they are………..keeping a private, secret life that is more important to them than you ever will be. Some secret addiction, And SECRECY makes it even more exciting for him.
DIB, I think eleven years was enough.
The challenge now is coping with the loneliness, learning how to trust, recognizing and acting upon deal breakers, and getting over the bitterness of lies and deceit. Not an easy task.
Your other option? Look the other way, question your sanity, expect the addiction to escalate, shield your children, spend your life force in denial and posing to be a happily married woman, take anti depressants, they help. Forfeit your own sexuality. Take the blame. Model this to your sons and daughters.
Jeez, I wish there were other options, maybe he’ll change…..
Dear Dusty.
You are a controlling, undeserving, lying, ignorant, moronic bitch who doesn’t deserve to have any person as her husband. Let alone somebody who is willing to put up with the sheer amount of bullshit you just spouted there.
Your husband had and has a right to seek out sexual fulfillment. If he’s not getting that from you, which I assume he hasn’t been, then he certainly has a right to fantasize about other women.
You are ignorant and stupid because you knowingly entered into a relationship with somebody who enjoyed jerking off while looking at pictures of women. ie. you entered into a relationship with a sex-positive heterosexual male. He didn’t lead you into a marriage, you willingly chose to be married to him, and if you expected him to never want to think about other women then you are the one who is an ignorant, deluded fool. He was respecting you by not telling you things that might have bothered you.
You husband didn’t choose porn over you. You chose not to pursue intimacy with him, and no rational person would ever blame him for seeking that out from other sources if you aren’t willing to provide it. I’m surprised that he bothered to stay with you at all if you started to give him ultimatums as though he was a child.
Who cares if he visits strip clubs? Why do you care if the people at the liquor store know his name? Drinking does not imply that a person is an alcoholic, and being in a relationship does not give you the right to force the other person follow your moral standards. That’s called abuse when men do it, but strangely not when women expect the right to order their partners around.
You’re the one who built your relationship on deceit by lying to your husband and pretending that you were okay with his porn.
Your husband, as you described him, and as DIB has described hers, is well within social norms for anybody who isn’t a religious fanatic. And if you are a religious person in any way, shape or form, then you deserve whatever pain you are feeling, because I don’t have sympathy for delusional fools.
You were already unfaithful to your husband when you let your insecurities get in the way of what you pretended was a happy marriage.
Your an anti-sex fanatical religious zealot, and any man who knew that about you would do well to stay far far away from you.
Or else, you know, your secret hatred of porn and your jealous need to control any woman you find threatening might lead you to build up a secret life where you pretend that you are okay with the behaviour that you signed off on when you agreed to be the partner of your husband.
A running shoe fetish? That is fabulous…you could wear comfortable shoes ALL THE TIME and have great sex.
Jeesh, boogaloo, either you know Dusty from elsewhere or you’re reading an awful lot into her comment.
@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.