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.
@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.