My husband and I have had an open marriage for the last two years. Up until five months ago, it was working beautifully. At that point, however, I was sexually assaulted by a former partner. Since that incident, I cannot stand sex with my husband. I completely flip out when he tries to initiate sexual contact. My skin crawls. I become panicked and feel repulsed. I just cannot handle it. Those times when I go along with it anyway leave me feeling enraged and disgusted.
I don’t think this is completely unheard of for someone who was relatively recently assaulted, and I am considering therapy to help me work through it. The immediate “problem” is that I have no difficulty having sex with my boyfriend. In fact, the sex with him is amazing and leaves me feeling loved and whole and wonderful.
This is breaking my husband’s heart. He has become incredibly jealous of my relationship with my boyfriend. He’s depressed. He’s angry. He accuses me of no longer loving him, and he wants me to stop sleeping with my boyfriend until our marriage is back to normal. I feel like a horrible person, but I just can’t do that. I need that outlet. I need that support. And I admit I have a hard time believing that my husband and I will ever be able to go back to the way things were before.
I feel like I’ve already lost my former partner (fucked-up though that may seem) and my husband. It kills me to think about cutting out the one positive relationship remaining. On the other hand, I do love my husband—very much—and watching him suffer like this is unbearable.
Potentially Traumatized Sexual Deviant
I’m sorry that you were sexually assaulted—that’s awful, PTSD, and I hope you went to the police and I hope you’re pressing charges. But I also hope you know that being the victim of sexual assault is not a Get Out of Being a Human Being Free card.
Just because you’ve been victimized doesn’t mean you operate in an alternate moral universe where you’re not obligated to take other people’s feelings into consideration—particularly the feelings of people you profess to love and happen to be married to. Your first priority in the wake of your assault had to be your own physical and emotional safety, of course, but your behavior toward your husband is both cruel and selfish.
If you truly loved your husband and valued your marriage, PTSD, you would’ve put the boyfriend on hold and gotten your ass into therapy without having to be told. It looks to me like you want out of this marriage. But instead of taking responsibility for wanting out, you’re playing the victim card while slamming both hands down on your marriage’s self-destruct button.
To sum up, PTSD: You’re being a total shit. Do you love your husband? Is your marriage a priority? Then start acting like it: Cut the boyfriend off—for the indefinite future—and get your ass onto a counselor’s couch. If you’re not willing to do those things, PTSD, then stop emotionally assaulting your husband and put both your marriage and him out of their misery.
I have two clits. How common is this? I have never been able to ride a bike because I have an earthshaking orgasm as soon as I get on the seat. I come on the bus—the soft vibrations are too much! Walking anywhere in tight pants gets me moaning. Is there anything I can do, or rub on myself, to avoid having multiple orgasms in public?
Two Much Fun
I’ve never heard of someone with two clits—but I haven’t searched the medical literature or sought the opinion of an expert. And I’m not inclined to search or seek when a letter is so transparently fake. (Opaque fakes are fine; every letter that makes it into the column is a good hypothetical question—for every reader save one.) People whose genitals are different or ambiguous or terrifying—maybe that’s not an extra clit but the tip of your parasitic twin’s nose—frequently have questions and concerns, TMF, but multiple earthshaking orgasms aren’t high on the list.
You don’t have a single clit, TMF, much less two. You’re a horny boy with a dick, an e-mail account, and an obsession with/terror of a woman’s potential capacity for unlimited sexual pleasure. And I’m hoping—I’m hoping against hope—that seeing your letter in print isn’t your peak sexual experience. But odds are…
I am a 47-year-old gay man who has a desire to be humiliated and degraded—by a straight guy! How do I make this happen? Do I just walk up to a straight guy and tell him I want to get on my knees and clean his shoes with my tongue while he spits on me and calls me names? Or that I want to eat out of a dog dish on the floor while he laughs at me? How the hell do I make this happen? Please don’t say, “Settle for a very straight-acting and straight-looking gay guy.” I have tried that, and it doesn’t work! The guy must be totally and completely straight! Otherwise, it’s just not a turn-on for me. I’m so desperate that I’m almost willing to pay for it!
Worthless Piece Of Shit
Long odds: If you have a wide circle of sexually adventurous straight friends, WPOS, and you are open with all of your friends about your kinks in a friendly, nonthreatening manner, maybe one or two of your straight male friends might be indulgent/perverse enough to want to engage in a little role-play with you. (And, yes, it’s possible to make someone feel threatened by offering to lick their boots and take their abuse.)
Somewhat shorter odds: Don’t have friends like that? Well, there are a lot of BDSM groups and orgs out there that are mixed, i.e., they have gay, lesbian, straight, bi, and trans members, and most host mixed play parties. Get involved with one, be open about your kinks, and you’ll meet a few kinky straight male tops who would get a kick out of slapping you around.
Best odds: Pay for it, already.
I’m a het male professional in my mid-20s who wants to find a female dominant partner. Pro-dom services abound for stereotypes like me, but I’m looking for a D/s relationship rather than just playtime. Predictably, I can’t find one. Women I meet randomly are mostly socialized to want dominant men, and kink personal sites like FetLife only make my plight look even direr: Nearly all the doms are either pros or in their 50s. It’s a given that dominant women my age are unicorns, but how can I maximize those slim chances?
Seeking Unrestrained Bitch
By keeping your kink personal ad updated—unlike unicorns, kinky younger women do exist, and you want them to be able to find your ad when they troll on FetLife—and by reconciling yourself to the fact that most submissive straight men in D/s relationships met vanilla women who weren’t perverts themselves but were pervertible.
CONFIDENTIAL TO LGBT YOUTH: Please check out the new, improved, expanded, and totally awesome It Gets Better Project site: www.itgetsbetterproject.com. And please don’t kill yourself.
Oops… please forgive the double post. It was done by mistake.
It’s curious. Women are actually almost dominant: they pretend they don’t make choices, or they don’t participate, but mostly are manipulative bitches. Men often are too busy looking at their egos to notice that.
Sorry, my gayness made me a bit misogynous xD
You guys are not focusing on the real problem here AT ALL.
TWO CLITORISES. CLITORII.
Today was fun! Feels like it’s been a while since we had a good, no-holds-barred plain old vanilla Savage kink advice.
?? What is this FetLife of which you speak?
PS: ROFLMAO @#53
PPS: I figure that, since the clitoris is homologous to the penis, having two clits is about as common as having two penises. How many of those have you heard of, TMF? Outside of http://www.boytaur.net, I mean.
The plurality of ‘clitoris’ is technically ‘clitores’ but since we’re speaking English here ‘clitorises’ does fine.
I’m not a psychological expert of any kind, but PTSD’s email seems inconsistent. Wouldn’t being traumatized by a sexual assault by a man make sex creepy for her for all men? If not, why her husband but not her boyfriend.
In the absence of that information her husband is justified in feeling jerked around, should divorce her and move on with his life.
@ Sevendaughters:
“Clitorides” is the proper Latin plural, I believe.
@ Lechugo:
Well, you’re gay, so of course you have every right to denigrate half of the entire human race. After all, why go through all the hassle of pretending women are real people unless you’re trying to get in their lady-parts? Sure, some women might say that it’s awfully ironic to see this kind of blatant bigotry from a gay man, who would presumably know how vicious stereotypes can be — but don’t listen to them! They’re just a bunch of manipulative bitches!
Ummm, hello? I’m a 32 year old domme who isn’t pro and into lifestyle D/s. It’s out there–on Fetlife, on Collarme (which is where I met my sub) and other places. Just gotta keep looking…
@53, you should be sorry for that sexist screed. Being gay doesn’t excuse you for being a dick.
PTSD, Your pussy had rejected your husband long before the assault and now it wants Vitamin-D only from the boyfriend. The best thing for you to do is acknowledge this reality and free your husband to move on with his life. What you are doing is cruel and unusual punishment much like an execution – only slower, more painful and more traumatic!!
@52 — you can’t blame it on your gayness. Many, *many* het men are equally misogynistic. Nice try, though!
I think Dan was too hard on PTSD. My ex-boyfriend raped me. Since the rape, I have been able to enjoy casual sex. Committed-relationship sex can still trigger me, two and a half years later. Loving someone makes you vulnerable, and feeling vulnerable can trigger flashbacks. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable is especially difficult after you’ve been raped by someone you trusted. I predict that if PTSD continues sleeping with her boyfriend, sex with him will also trigger her. PTSD is sabotaging her marriage, but I suspect that is because she cannot tolerate closeness so soon after the rape.
Five months–so soon? Yes. Don’t get me wrong: PTSD needs to see a rape therapist ASAP. I couldn’t feel anything or admit that I had been raped until six months after the assault. Then one night the emotional tsunami hit, and I drove 400 miles to my sister’s house crying.
PTSD is making poor choices while she dodges some terrible emotions. But please don’t gang up on her. A rape flashback is like being bound and gagged and held underwater as all the light is extinguished from the universe.
I love the word: Misogynistic. Ooooh. He hates women. No, it’s not that we hate women, we are merely frustrated by their petty drama bullshit, changing moods from day to day with no apparent rhyme or reason and the way they use sex as a weapon.
PTSD (I will just bet) is being defended on this board by the same people who use that weapon to great effect. She (like them I am sure) is playing emotional games and destroying a man’s life through a deliberate (or perhaps subconscious but nevertheless pleasing on many levels) sexual game of titillation and denial.
Problem is they don’t need the ‘I was raped get out of being human card in order to use that inhuman tactic. Standard Operating Procedure for almost all of them.
I love the word: Misogynistic. Ooooh. He hates women. No, it’s not that we hate women, we are merely frustrated by their petty drama bullshit, changing moods from day to day with no apparent rhyme or reason and the way they use sex as a weapon.
PTSD (I will just bet) is being defended on this board by the same people who use that weapon to great effect. She (like them I am sure) is playing emotional games and destroying a man’s life through a deliberate (or perhaps subconscious but nevertheless pleasing on many levels) sexual game of titillation and denial.
Problem is they don’t need the ‘I was raped get out of being human card in order to use that inhuman tactic. Standard Operating Procedure for almost all of them.
I would have been even harsher with this manipulative shrew.
Once the husband says stop and you don’t stop, you’re cheating openly.
It’s up to him if he calls you on it and divorces you (he should!) but you will have to accept that your husband divorced you because you couldn’t be faithful to him.
In time, this might hurt more than the assault.
I’d tend to get behind the two main “practical” points of the advice to PTSD — 1) get therapy so you can start getting to a place where that horrible experience won’t control you, and 2) at least consider putting the sexual relationship with the BF on hold while starting to pursue #1. OTOH, I just can’t get behind the tone of Dan’s response — dude, deal with the trauma first, *then* start sorting out everyone else’s reaction to the traumatized person’s experience.
As for SUB — if he were gay, I’d be all over that. I know I can’t be the only dom who finds sub professionals hot, if for no other reason than professionals having such disproportionate social power these days. (If SUB has a certain amount of social power and SUB’s dom exerts total control over SUB…well, you see how it works.) There are definitely women who are looking for someone just like him.
66: “OTOH, I just can’t get behind the tone of Dan’s response — dude, deal with the trauma first, *then* start sorting out everyone else’s reaction to the traumatized person’s experience.”
Dude, the way she is going about it, she’s traumatizing other people herself. If she waits until she gets her shit figured out before taking the husband into account, there won’t be a marriage left to save.
Refusing to give up the boyfriend IS selfish and cruel. She knows that breaks her husband’s heart, and she chooses to keep doing it anyway.
Repeat: She knows that breaks her husband’s heart, and she chooses to keep doing it anyway.
One more time: She knows that breaks her husband’s heart, and she chooses to keep doing it anyway.
That concept cannot be overemphasized. Personally, I think she ought to write it out on the chalkboard five hundred times until it sinks in: “I know that this choice breaks my husband’s heart, and I choose to do it anyway.”
Not “I just can’t do that, I need that outlet.” It’s, “I know that this choice breaks my husband’s heart, and I choose to do it anyway.”
Getting traumatized does not confer a license to willfully traumatize the other people in turn — least of all the ones that you claim to love.
“I feel like I’ve already lost my former partner (fucked-up though that may seem) and my husband. It kills me to think about cutting out the one positive relationship remaining.”
This, more than anything else, indicates to me that the Letter Writer checked out of the marriage long ago. I don’t understand what weirdness is tangled up between the rapist ex-partner and the husband, but of the three men that she mentions, not only is hubby clearly last in line in her emotions (she considers the rapist a loss? Seriously?), he is already cut loose in her mind. The only relationship she considers viable is with the new boyfriend.
As a straight Dom, I gotta say slapping around WPOS and making him lick my boots, etc. sounds like a lot of fun. As long as I don’t have to have any skin-to-skin contact with him, it would allow me to show off my Dom cred in (what for me would be) a safe environment. Check out some BDSM clubs or groups, you’re bound to get lucky.
I sit here in tears after looking at the It Gets Better web site and videos. I wish this existed when i was 12
THANK YOU to everyone who became involved. It got better for me, it WILL get better for you. Reach out, dont be alone cos youre NOT. school only feels like forever, it ends and youre free to be yourself. I have great friends who accept me just as i am. I love them for it. I have a good life. We matter, we make a difference when we reach out to help, and reach out to get help. together we are strong. never forget that. dont let the bullies win, we deserve a life of happiness.
@professor.
Wait…who uses sex as a weapon again?
Rapists? no wait, women- those manipulative bitches living in the context of male sexual violence with their oh so annoying feelings- withold sex as a weapon. Because not having sex with a man is an act of violence.
Freak. Laughable. Dig up your Mommy and Dr. Freud; you’ve got work to do.
(LOL! my antispambot text was “MAGNUM”)
Soooo, the predomninate opinion on PTSD is that she should just see a therapist (aka “get over it”) and give her husband the kind of sex he wants, regardless of her issues?
Kinda surprised to see that here.
Without confirmation from the husband, I question the validity of PTSD’s statement that the open marriage was working beautifully (for her husband). Altough supposition on my part, it seems apparent that at some point the importance of her relationship with the boyfriend superceded the importance of her marriage and relationship with her husband. I don’t pretend to possess any great knowledge about open relationships/marriages, but my understanding is that this would represent a material breach of the type of ground rules (re: emotional involvement with other parties) that are supposed to be agreed upon before openning a marriage/relationship. I would not be surprised by any of the following scenarios 1) the husband only grudging agreed to openning the marriage 2) he quickly became dissatisfied with the open marriage 3) he expressed his unhappiness (maybe not verbally), but the wife was having a great time and ignored his concerns/change in behavior 4) the husband has felt neglected for quite some time and his depression predates the current situation 5) she deluded herself or didn’t care that her husband wasn’t happy. Once again, without comment from the husband no reader can discern the what was actually going on. People believe what they want to believe, when it suits them, and justifies their actions or validate their desires. Many people will only face reality when they are forced to by a crisis. As a result of the assault and its aftermath, the husband is clearly stating his feelings and unhappiness and the wife can’t ignore them.
PTSD does not say how long they have been married, what motivated/who proposed openning the marriage, what their sex life was like before openning the marriage or before the sexual assault. If such information was provided, it should not have been left out.
@50: That’s ridiculous. If you want an open relationship where both people have total veto power, fine, but to say it’s the only workable kind of relationship is silly. It seems very extreme to me. Not everyone is like you. For some of us who are non-monogamous, having our partner have that kind of control over our sex lives would be scary and feel confining.
And if you don’t want a monogamous relationship in the first place, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to say that your partner can make you go back to monogamy. Wouldn’t that effectively end the relationship for someone who doesn’t want monogamy? Seems like that’s just another way of breaking up, which anyone can do at any time anyway.
73: “Soooo, the predomninate opinion on PTSD is that she should just see a therapist (aka “get over it”) and give her husband the kind of sex he wants, regardless of her issues? “
Close, but no. Read it again. She should recognize that, under the circumstances, her stance with regard to the boyfriend is killing her relationship with her husband. If you can’t grasp how, perhaps your partner needs to tell you for several months that he/she finds you viscerally repulsive, but meanwhile is more than happy to go fuck a different “friend.”
She should be willing to give up the boyfriend and focus on her relationship with the husband until she gets her marriage back on track. It is assumed that sex is off the table for HIM for the duration of the healing process. That ain’t exactly giving “her husband the kind of sex he wants, regardless of her issues.” Frankly, being able to run away and blow off steam with the boyfriend has been allowing her to avoid those issues.
And yes, she should see a therapist. To hear you talk, “getting over it” is a bad thing.
While true for any marriage/relationship/person, PTSD’s letter illustrates that these risks increase with open marriages/relationships simply because of the additional individuals involved. People who think they can control their emotions when sex is involved are only kidding themselves. Everyone runs the risk of a former partner reacting badly (gross understatement in this case) after breaking up.
PTSD does not provide any information about her relationship with the former partner or the circumstances that lead to the former partner becoming a former partner. (I assume it was a man). Did he become a former partner before or after the assault.
I’m confused, what did she mean when she said she felt like she’d already lost her former partner. Why would that be an issue if he already was a former partner before the assault. It sounds like she formed emotional attachments to/with her other partners. Isn’t that supposed to be avoided?
75: He didn’t say that was the only workable kind of relationship. He said that was the only kind of workable relationship FOR HIM. And for others that feel the same way he does. Obviously that doesn’t include you, but you can count me among those who agree with him. As far as I am concerned, instant veto power is to open relationships what a safe-word is to exploring a kink.
How many words out of that post did you skip?
“Wouldn’t that effectively end the relationship for someone who doesn’t want monogamy?”
Only if you don’t give a shit about your partner’s feelings, which is pretty much what refusing to call even a temporary time-out when your partner is unhappy tends to communicate.
@9 Your statement about PTSD having difficulty telling people about the assault is absurd. It is obvious that she has has told her husband, her boyfriend, and the world at large through a letter to this public forum (granted she has a generally understanding/accepting audience and the benefit of anonymity). Her husband would be a complete asshole if didn’t get her immediate medical attention following the assault, which would result in her having to talk about the assault with medical staff and possibly the police.
No competent therapist would engage in victim blaming, if only to avoid a medical malpractice lawsuit. That has no bearing on her decision not to get counseling up to this point.
However, I do wonder about the husband’s reaction and whether he is consciously or subconsciously blaming her. Rarely are women responsible for being sexually assaulted (if making bad or stupid decisions can be said to make one complicit or responsible/admittedly it is a poor analogy, but you are responsible for the consequences of drunken driving). Nothing ever justifies sexual assault or abuse (unless that is a woman’s kink). However, it was ultimately her decision to have voluntary sex at some point with her assailant that culminated in the assault. Would the assault have occurred without that decision, probably not. Is the husband blaming her for that decision? I repeat, nothing justifies sexual and I am not blaimg the wife for it. I am speculating on how the husband may have reacted and how it may have differed from the boyfriend’s reaction. The husband is more likely than the boyfriend to also feel violated since he by definition has more invested in their relationship. While she is the principal victim, she is not the only victim of the assault. All family members are more or less affected by a tragedy and have to deal with their feelings/emotions.
At some level does the wife blame the husband for openning the marriage and therefore the assault?
How and through whom did the wife become involved with her assailant?
Who was the assailant, a friend of her husband, one of his co-workers, his superior or boss, a member of his family?
PTSD needs professional help now. Unless he is a trained pyscho-therapist, her relationship with the boyfriend is not beneficial to her mental health. She is not going to get that help as long as she can rely on him as a crutch. All the time, energy, and emotions she devotes to the boyfriend is robbed from from her marriage and her husband.
As with any situation with limited resources, tihs is very much a zero sum situation.
PSTD should set aside a quiet night with her husband, each take 120mg of pure MDMA together and talk the matter out. MDMA was found to be gold for couples’ counseling when used by Leo Ziff and other psychotherapists back in the 70s, and also what guys like Rick Doblin over at MAPS is trying to pave the way to bring back.
Almost guaranteed to either bring the couple back together or allow them to see clearly and non-judmentally that its not going to work.
I doubt the sincerity of WPOS, too. I know that being a Sub is a legitimate kink (and I respect that), but just when the “It Gets Better” project is taking off, someone writes a letter to Dan saying that he’s a gay man who WANTS to be abused and humiliated by straights? To say that it’s ironic would be overlooking the obvious.
I think PSTD has a right to feel grief over the loss of her former partner. That’s a huge loss of trust and there is a lot of grief involved in that. I felt a lot of grief when I was raped by someone I knew. Because I thought he was my friend. I’m sure she thought her former partner was her friend. That’s a pretty huge betrayal and I think a lot of you are overlooking that.
I don’t know what is triggering her and obviously she doesn’t either, but trust could be involved. Or perhaps she’s not able to give herself emotionally to her husband like she was able to in the past. I’m sure she consciously trusts her husband, but subconsciously, maybe not so much.
Her relationship with her boyfriend might just be on a superficial level. If it’s just physical and with very little emotion then that might be why she’s connecting with him differently than with her husband.
She needs serious therapy, and yes she needs to put the boyfriend aside. She’s stuck in a cycle of abuse and it’s including two innocent men.
@75 (WordyGrrl), no, you got it wrong. The predominant opinion is that she should get therapy (aka ‘therapy’) to solve her issues, only one of which is her problem with her husband. Whether or not they end up together or not is entirely up to her (and him).
My heart really goes out to you PTSD. I have had a very difficult time myself after being savagely raped by a ‘friend’, and then finding that the trauma was totally triggered by my husband, and that I was simply unable to turn off the sexual freeze. It was certainly not a matter of choice. Who would live with the horror of PTSD if they actually did have a choice? Anyway, it has taken a lot of therapy to get to the point where I am no longer triggered by his touch – hopefully sex will be next.
Besides therapy and an understanding husband, what has helped me the most has been to research PTSD, so I could understand why I was acting the way I was, and also to read the stories of other rape survivors. I highly recommend ‘Denial’ by Jessica Stern-really helpful.
Dan, I hope you might also get some more info about rape PTSD. In my experience it’s a different order of difficulty than the usual relationship difficulties, because it’s mediated by a primitive part of the brain that’s not under conscious control. I thought you were kinda harsh on PTSD. If anyone had accused me of being cruel to my husband it would have only added to the trauma, shame and guilt I was already feeling. It would have added another layer to what was already a really difficult recovery.
@15 & @62 & @73: You guys summarize my opinion pretty nicely. I’m really disappointed in Dan’s response.
@50: That’s funny, all the open relationships that I know that haven’t crashed and burned don’t have a veto. Not having a veto means that you actually have to deal with the inevitable snags and problems, and treat your partners like human beings, not like masturbation toys that can be thrown away when they become inconvenient. Dealing with these problems, by addressing them and talking through them like adults instead of just freaking out and running away, strengthens all the relationships. Your position seems kind of craven.
@63
Seriously? You’re going paint an entire group of people with one brush and pretend like you AREN’T a misogynist?
You need to grow up. YES some women are manipulative. But so are some men. And there’s a whole spectrum of personalities in between.
Men like you are disgusting. You’ve found an easy way to justify your prejudice and allow yourself to keep hating on ALL women when the problem is really in your own head.
As a survivor of incest, I have a hard time initiating sex with a regular partner – because such a person would end up *being family*. Knowing it’s irrational doesn’t help.
I lead a monogamous sex life, and I love my 2-years partner. Ever since the relationship hit about 6 months I’ve been triggered every time I want sex. So I make myself initiate sex ; for now on, it works, after 10-15 min of fooling around the bad feelings subside and I can start enjoying the sex, and fully participate. I’m not gonna change partners every 2 months because of a damn trigger.
And that’s after years of therapy, and more than 20 years after the actual events… I wouldn’t blame PTSD for what she’s living through.
Get yourself into therapy – while you’re not to blame for what you feel, it makes you hurt your husband now. Don’t let this rape destroy all your life. And press charges ; don’t let the rapist steal other lives.
you know what i see no mention of in PTSD’s letter? a girlfriend the husband can go to for relief during this, or any mention of him ever having a girlfriend on the side. you’d think PTSD would mention it if he had one. “I told him to go fuck his girlfriend to feel better, but he said he wasn’t in the mood anymore.”
maybe, as some of the comments have theorized, their marriage is only opened one way. not that this is a problem, if the husband’s cool with it and agreed to it, but that might be why he’s taking this so badly even though sexual assault was involved. if they had set some rules about this, what she’s doing would be straight-up cheating if the sexual assault hadn’t been the impetus behind the current predicament.
however, since they had an open marriage before, the actual act of her fucking this other guy shouldn’t bother him that much, it’s the fact that it’s no longer happening within the confines of their agreement on the openess of their marriage. and the husband said he just wants her to stop until they can get help for their problem. i can see this working out for them if they get some counseling or something.
@73: Um, what? Nobody, not even Dan, is saying, “Get over it, go back and fuck your husband the way he needs it.”
We’re saying, “Maybe you should put rushing back into a ‘normal’ life on hold — on HOLD — because clearly it’s *not normal anymore*.” The LW is basically dealing with this situation by doing whatever just glosses over the pain and ignoring what might actually serve to resolve it, at its core.
Therapy IS “getting over it” — but constructively, while addressing and confronting as much of the problem as possible. It isn’t the snarky, flippant dismissal you’re using.
Considering the husband and either working through this with him and/or ending his misery isn’t “go fuck him while you cry in your soul.” Nobody’s demanded this — not even the husband. Jesus.
I can completely relate to PTSD. I am a man in an open marriage, and after an emotional trauma I just couldn’t stand having sex with my wife. My wife didn’t understand why I could have tender, loving sex with my girlfriend, but not her. She is unwilling to be patient while I slowly heal, in the loving warm embrace of my girlfriend. I wish she could read PTSD’s letter so she could realize how selfish she is being, and attempt to truly understand my point of view.
Dear SEB:
Hark, for I am what you claim to crave, a younger female dominant! And I have a bit of advice for you:
Fetlife is NOT a dating website. It was built specifically to discourage that. While it is possible to meet people through it, if you’re cold messaging female tops I sort of see your problem, in that we she-doms, who are not there to be picked up, generally ignore or reject the steady flow of “want mistress plz!” messages in our inboxes.
@87
Not craven, just aware of the emotional dangers. Been there in good situations and bad, and seen what works for me and what doesn’t.
@75
Avast2006 (#78) has captured my response to you. I am not saying that this is how it MUST be for everyone, but I would never be in an open relationship without it.
Avast2006 – Your analogy is perfect. Veto power over secondaries is exactly like safewords in BDSM. They make a potentially dangerous situation safer.
OK, some of you out there may be so emotionally and spiritually advanced that you can do without this. Good for you. But don’t look down on us mortals who want a little security.
I am a firespinner, and always spin with a safety. I ride motorcycles only with a helmet on. I shoot guns with eye and ear protection. I jump out of airplanes, but only after checks to make sure my chute is packed correctly. It’s the same with BDSM and non-monogamy. I enjoy the edge more when I know I’ve got security. Others are welcome to follow their own hearts/genitals/risk profiles.
Dan’s comments are entirely, 100% consistent with ethical points he’s made in the past.
How PTSD or anyone else feels doesn’t waive her responsibilities to other people. Quite frankly, PTSD is taking advantage of her husband’s sympathy. She’s replacing her primary partner, and he’s letting her get away with it because of circumstances.
Here’s a thought experiment. Ignore the poly part for a second. Substitute “fucking the boyfriend” with “injecting heroin”. How many of you think she’s completely justified now, hmm?
Last but not least, PTSD is also attempting to get Dan to validate a course of action which she knows is wrong. There’s no moral dilemma here and PTSD knows it.
@93 I haven’t actually sent any messages, I was merely lurking to get a sense of the demographics. Like I said, I’m looking for a real relationship (including friendship!), so “want mistress plz” isn’t really in my vocabulary either.
I would really like to hear what the nature of the sexual assault was. Any unwanted touching for the sexual gratification of the toucher is a sexual assault. There’s a huge continuum. You can’t assume PTSD was raped. And something about her letter makes me wonder just how serious the assault was. Getting groped is not as serious as getting raped, but they are both sexual assaults.
I can’t believe you could say that to PTSD. Not only does she get raped, but afterwards her husband pressures her into sex? If he knows he’s distressing her and yet he doesn’t step away and let her heal, then he’s the jerk in the relationship. Getting over sexual assault is far, far from easy. You can stay shell-shocked, confused for ages, and it’s incredibly naive to think that after that, someone can just make a to-do list and get over it after they’ve crossed out all the items on it.
To summarize, she’s dealing with rape, he’s dealing with minor jealousy. Yet his feelings are more important, because in Dan Savage’s mind, this is 1950, except with less homophobia.
I take it next week you’ll be back saying “OMG I was drunk, don’t take it personally, kthxbye!” Who do you think you are, Ernest Hemingway?
Just wanted to comment on the amazing project “It Gets Better”. Google employees have added their voices now (on Youtube, a Google product) at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pYLs4NCgv…
@78: If one person wants monogamy and the other person doesn’t, that seems like a sexual incompatibility. If the relationship doesn’t work for you, or if you’re incompatible, ending it doesn’t mean that you “don’t give a shit about your partner’s feelings.”
If you don’t want or can’t deal with a monogamous relationship, it doesn’t make a lot of sense for your partner to be able to demand one on a whim, and in such a situation, where your partner can’t handle it, the reasonable thing to do is recognize that you’re no longer compatible and end things.
@94: That’s totally cool that the veto makes you feel safe, and I have no problem with that. The original post made it sound like you were saying “THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR SAFETY IN GENERAL,” like a safe word is, which I strongly disagree with (at least for me personally).
See, I would actually feel very unsafe in a relationship where I had the obligation to terminate existing sexual relationships if my partner asked. That seems incredibly controlling. While I understand the desire for security, the veto system wouldn’t really give me that: not because I’m emotionally or spiritually advanced, but because I find security in different places.
Good for you, Dan, to print a letter that was such obvious horseshit (Two clits? Give me a break …)
It’s a great way to signal to the anonymous adolescent who wrote it 1) You are on to them 2) You know crap when you read it, and 3) You aren’t impressed.
Hopefully, printing the occasional dumb-ass fake letter will serve as a deterrent to the other emotionally retarded types who seek to waste your time.