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.

mail@savagelove.net

298 replies on “Savage Love”

  1. Shakesville commenters… stupid

    Idea that calling someone a “total shit” when they’ve been sexually assaulted makes you a victim-blamer… stupid

    Dan Savage… continues to be awesome.

  2. I’m in a poly marriage, and I think that breaking off a good relationship because the “primary” is struggling is a terrible idea that will just hurt the “primary” relationship more. When my husband first started dating his girlfriend, I got terribly jealous. We had horrible fights and he decided that the best thing was to break up with the girlfriend. It was a terrible idea. They were still friends and hung out and talked and texted each other, though they didn’t have sex and I guess they spent less time with each other. Though I was still terribly jealous, but because they were “just friends” I had less room to complain. He was resentful for having to break up with her, and he thought that I would act grateful, but I hurt even worse. Finally they got back together and we could negotiate things honestly instead of having them pretend to be just friends.

    More recently, I started dating a guy, and I was every bit the shit that you guys think PTSD is, though I was actually a shit because I hadn’t been raped. I was just on a new relationship energy high and I didn’t care about anything else. I’d have a big fight with my husband, and I’d respond by leaving for the weekend with my boyfriend. I didn’t want sex with my husband anymore, because my boyfriend was hotter. Fortunately for all of us, my husband didn’t realize that because he was working 80 hours a week and has a clingy girlfriend (which actually were the reasons I looked for a boyfriend in the first place). If my husband had demanded I dump the boyfriend, I would have asked for a divorce because I didn’t even care.

    Eventually the NRE faded, and my husband and I stopped fighting. We remembered why we loved each other again, and we’re glad we didn’t divorce over the rough spots. Making ultimatums about other partners wouldn’t have helped out all, we just needed time to work through it. It’s harder and more complicated for PTSD because she’s not just being a shit, she’s trying to figure out how to deal with her own trauma, and I don’t even know where to begin to help her with that. I hope her husband can be supportive of her with that, though I don’t know how he managed to have sex with her that left her feeling “enraged and disgusted.” Wouldn’t he have noticed and stopped? I especially don’t get why she has to say “Those times” as in, he’s had sex with her more than once leaving her enraged and disgusted. How do you do that with someone you love, or not notice that you’re doing that? Projecting from my own experience, I want them to work out, but I’m not sure if that’s the best. If they do stay together, what needs to be fixed is not the boyfriend.

  3. I have loved Savage Love for a long time. I’ve also made excuses for the biphobic, fatphobic, sexist, and racist content that at various times has cropped up here. Dan- you’re a great activist on certain issues, but where you aren’t a great activist you not only AREN’T an activist, you actually cause great harm to the people you take digs at. Honesty is just honesty. It doesn’t require brutality and your answer to PTSD is so mind-blowingly ableist and sexist and heteronormative that I think I can’t excuse you anymore. Which makes me sad, which is ridiculous, because as an activist I have a responsibility to say this to you and to leave and not come back. Thanks for all your amazing work on so many other issues- kink, certain elements of LGBT rights, the It Gets Better campaign- but Jesus Fucking Christ, Dan, please educate yourself better.

  4. @ 204 Wow, could you throw more unsubstantiated buzz words into your comment? Biphobic, fatphobic, sexist, ableist, heteronormative, and racist?
    Fer real? I’ve been reading Dan for 10 years and I’ve never seen him display those traits. Btw, you forgot transphobic, necrophobic, and he hates dogs.

  5. Btw, if you REALLY thought that Dan was biphobic, fatphobic, sexist, ableist, heteronormative, and racist you probably should have stopped reading a long time ago.

  6. I agree that Savage’s advice was surprisingly bad and lacking in empathy. I read the letter several times through looking for a sign that she didn’t care about her husband or was looking for an excuse to leave the marriage, and came up empty. It sounds like she experienced something that was both traumatizing and confusing, and her body is now reacting in ways she doesn’t understand. She can’t be blamed for her physiological responses during sex, just as her husband can’t be blamed for his feelings of jealousy, grief and anger over the rejection. It’s just pure, animal reaction to something neither of them brought on themselves.

    The whole aftermath sounds incredibly sad, fucked-up and potentially in the process of destroying three lives. Anyone who can read this without feeling empathy for ALL THREE people involved is, in my opinion, playing the GOOBAHB card themselves. This isn’t your typical Savage Love “I want to be pissed on, where can I find someone?” shit; there’s way more going on here than an advice columnist can fix. Dan should’ve been responsible and privately told her “I’m sorry you’re in this situation, but I think you’d benefit from the help of a medical professional. Here are some people you can contact.” NOT call her a “total shit” and throw her to the wolves on the comment boards.

    All these armchair analysts need to STFU, and Dan needs to apologize for his uncharacteristically awful advice. And PTSD needs to get herself into therapy, take her husband along and hopefully begin to untangle this sad, shitty situation IN PRIVATE.

  7. I really love the line of people in this thread advocating that HE is the problem and even a pseudo-pre-rapist because he wants to fuck his wife after 5 months.

    Shall we repeat that: He wants to make love with his wife after 5 months and her response is to go fuck her boyfriend.

    Sounds to me like this guy has the patience of Job but this relationship has no chance. Making the skin crawl is a bit like when the branch turns brown and crispy- time to cut it off and start with a fresh bud.

    That CBT (cognitive-behavioral therapy) can’t revive the dead.

    Oh and all you armchair psychologist-feminists, you are right, of course that her problem is probably all about the power dynamic of marriage. And you are right marriage was an institution to control female sexuality- but what you miss is it also controls male sexuality and prevents us all from acting like Dan’s friends in the bathroom stall with any woman we meet.

    And yes, 100 percent, absolutely, a good faith attempt to sexually satisfy your partner is part of the marriage contract and PTSD is in material breach.

  8. I was wondering how long it would take before someone blamed the husband and or Dan. It took six comments. I’m surprised it took that long. Didn’t read all of the comments but I would be willing to bet that more then half fall into that same vein.

  9. Joreth @ 175:

    I lose that sympathy when their desire to be loved and/or fucked overrides their own concern for that loved one and when they choose to demand self-serving actions instead of putting their own selfish desires on hold in order to support someone they supposedly love while she works through the problem.

    How ironic.
    Because your words apply quite well to PTSD.
    Her desire to be fucked and feel loved (“and whole and wonderful”) over-rides her concern for her husband, and she has chosen to maintain that situation instead of seeking therapy or otherwise putting her selfish desires for her own comfort on hold (which would provide her husband some feeling of hope) in order to support someone she supposedly loves while she works through the problem.
    She could have chosen healing over selfish comfort, and she’s the only person involved that can. Instead she ignores the husband, doesn’t get therapy, and uses the boyfriend. And that means she’s acting like a total shit.

    Avast @ 198: Nice post.

  10. Is it possible that PTSD blames her husband for her vulnerability to sexual assault by allowing the open relationship? Is it possible that, in her mind, the sexual assault would have never happened if he had insisted on monogamy?

  12. wow you people are seriously sick ! you need serious help the lot of you ! as for the gay sub you can lick my boots all shiny then i’ll stomp the flying shit out of you . if fact i’ll kick you until you see satan if thats what you want. it is isn’t it you little sicko ! RESPECT MY AUTHORITY!

  13. The level of reading comprehension on display among some of the commenters here– specifically, the ones excoriating Dan for his advice to PTSD– makes me despair for the state of education in this country. Nowhere did Dan say that she should fuck her husband. Only that she should stop fucking her boyfriend. Those two things are VASTLY different; fucking her husband is clearly triggering her (and thus should be avoided) but fucking her boyfriend is doing serious damage to her husband and should also be avoided. Yes, if Dan was saying “suck it up and have sex with your husband” he would be guilty of giving bad advice, but he’s not.

    And @204, the pseudo-intellectual condescension that drips from your buzzword-filled post is so thick I can almost see the library of unread third-wave feminist lit in your dorm room. At least crack the spine on To Be Real to impress visitors.

  14. @204: Absolutely nothing in the world is so “biphobic, fatphobic, sexist, and racist”, “ableist and sexist and heteronormative” as giving members of any of said concerned groups a free pass.

    That is the issue with any worthwhile ethical question. Everyone has standing – PTSD, her husband, her boyfriend, her evil ex, family, friends, and society as a whole – but not everyone has equal standing. It isn’t a fantasyland where everyone’s interests are aligned, or where you can just wipe out someone (like the husband) by telling them to suck it up.

    As a self-described poly activist, you should be the first person to call foul on PTSD, and twice as hard on her. Polyamory requires honesty, open communication, and transparency. As far as I can see, PTSD is 0 for 3.

  15. To 212, I feel sorry for the wife and the husband(espeically the wife, as she is the real victim here). I HAVE NO SYMPATHY FOR THE BF!! What ever pain he has, is the risk that he took when he placed himself in someone elses marriage. If he had any class, and if he really loved her, he would encourage her to seek professional help, then he would step aside and let her work on her self, and her primary relation ship, aka, her marriage. But my guess is that he won’t,because its all about him, and only him.

  16. Interesting to see how this issue causes emotional reactions on both sides; those who idolize the sexual assault victim’s status, and those who demonize it.

    Interesting.

    I hope PTSD finds her balance, and I hope her husband also does. For the time being, they are not helping each other, despite attempts from both sides. They should seek therapy as soon as possible, and see where it takes them.

    I don’t see much future for this marriage. Or for the boyfriend either, for that matter. I don’t know how he is taking it, but this kind of psychological situation is certainly not going to be pleasant to deal with.

  17. I know it’s a week late, but I just saw that someone was making ‘Fuck your feelings’ shirts.. check them out..

    sqglzstore.bigcartel.com

  18. I know it’s a week late, but I just saw that someone was making ‘Fuck your feelings’ shirts.. check them out..

    sqglzstore.bigcartel.com

  19. For sexual assault survivors, it is very common to be able to engage in casual sex more easily and joyously than sex in committed relationships. What Dan wrote to PTSD is misinformed and cruel.

    As a person that works with dv and sexual assault survivors, I understand why someone would not even consider reporting the crime. People who casually suggest you “press charges” usually have no concept of the frustrating process they refer to, one which hardly even recognizes assault between partners. The law is in every way inadequate in responding to partner abuse. Judges and cops don’t want to hear it. Often reporting only creates more triggers and opens one up to more inconsideration and invalidation, which can wrongly promote a victim’s self-blame (Dan’s words here serve as example).

    It has only been five months. I applaud PTSD for even recognizing and being able to articulate what happened to her. I recommend therapy on her terms, for herself and for her marriage – but not only so she can hurry up and start having sex with her husband when it is repulsive to her.

    Dan, you have lost a reader. The accompanying graphic takes your answer to a whole different level of offensive.

    PTSD, I work professionally with survivors and have experienced a very similar situation. It took me 2 years to even tell someone what happened to me. You are clearly strong and self-aware. I wish you the best. Ignore every one of Dan’s words.

  20. “For sexual assault survivors, it is very common to be able to engage in casual sex more easily and joyously than sex in committed relationships.”

    So what? It is also very common to feel depressed, angry and jealous when you make your wife’s skin crawl, but there’s this other guy that she can’t get enough sex with. Frankly, that reaction is probably as far beyond his capacity to rationalize away as her current reaction to his touch is beyond her.

    The question is whether to treat that factoid about a common reaction by assault survivors as the ethical choice on how to treat the pathologically rejected spouse — and more to the point, whether choosing to continue to “easily and joyously” fuck the boyfriend while freezing out the husband will kill the marriage. All indications thus far are, yes, it will. What she is doing with the boyfriend hurts her husband, and she is doing it by choice. She cloaks that choice in words like “can’t” go without it but the reality is that “won’t” go without it is more accurate. If she wants to lose him, all she has to do is keep doing what she’s doing now, and let things continue to deteriorate.

    Or she can put her rampant horn-dog tendencies on hold for the time being, just like her husband is being asked to do, and the two of them can focus on their marriage and on each other in non-sexual ways while she heals. (For that matter, while HE heals from the ways in which she has been hurting him. )

    Unless you think he should just sit there and take it while she hurts him again and again. By the time she’s finished recovering, he’s the one who will be needing therapy, and who will recoil at her touch.

    “I recommend therapy on her terms, for herself and for her marriage – but not only so she can hurry up and start having sex with her husband when it is repulsive to her.”

    When it is repulsive to her? Wrong formulation. If she gets therapy, and it works, having sex with her husband won’t be repulsive to her any more. One would think that the sooner that could be achieved, the better for both of them. And here you are characterizing it as “hurry up,” as if recovering quickly is a bad thing? One would almost think you feel that having her continue to feel revolted by her husband is what she wants.

    What exactly does “therapy on her terms” mean? Other than telling the husband to sit down and shut up, because since he wasn’t assaulted, his emotions are of no consequence?

  21. “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.”

    I agree with this part big time. I’m a woman in my twenties, and while I am more likely to want to be dominated (Though that “socialized to want it” part kind of pisses me off, *ahem*), I do have a streak of wanting to be the dominant partner, and finding a lot of pleasure in it, even if I do feel kind of awkward at times. Uncharted territory and all that. I can see how, with the right partner, I could REALLY get into it and have a great time. I suggest you set your sights on a girl that could go for it, and help her become the domme you both want her to be. Help someone flower into the pervert they were born to be! 😉

  22. “(she considers the rapist a loss? Seriously?)”

    Well, she obviously trusted the guy that raped her, and enjoyed his company enough to fuck him before all that, so he was probably a friend with benefits, right? Your first thought as an outsider would be “WTF?! Good riddance!” but it makes sense in a twisted way that she’d feel a kind of loss despite the horrible thing he did to her. Having someone you thought was your friend betray you so wholey and brutally is very painful. It’s not like the rapist was a stranger. The vast majority of rapists AREN’T strangers to their victims. It’s part of what makes things so guilt-laden, complicated and hard to deal with.

    Going through the comments after I wrote but before I posted this, I see NOP_Spinster @84 wrote it a lot more eloquently than I could.

    “I’ll repeat that, because it’s important: despite popular opinion, YOU DO NOT OWE YOUR SPOUSE SEX.”

    If she loves him like she says she does, she owes it to him to try to get herself healthy, and finding an understanding therapist would be a good start. You owe it to the person you love to take care of yourself. If you can’t do that, maybe you shouldn’t be in a relationship. Fucking the boyfriend is something of a crutch that might be holding her together for the short term–SOMETHING that can help keep her from losing her shit for a while–but it won’t help long-term.

  23. @220, Sarah B., who said: ” People who casually suggest you “press charges” usually have no concept of the frustrating process they refer to, one which hardly even recognizes assault between partners. The law is in every way inadequate in responding to partner abuse.”

    I think you’re misreading the letter here, Sarah. The “partner” that PTSD mentions is apparently her business partner, since the assault happened in the workplace. So it’s not the kind of thing that the police and others refuse to believe in — but actually the stuff of which sucessful sexual harassment charges are usually made of: forcing someone to have sex in the workplace.

    I notice that you, like so many others, project a certain scenario onto the letter which we know nothing about. You belittle the husband’s suffering, who is also a victim (notice how PTSD herself says his suffering is unberarable to watch) and I wonder if you would do that if he, not PTSD, had been the assault victim.

    You may of course be right: your added contextual presuppositions may be right. And of course you are right that such deviations as PTSD experiences — casual sex OK (but notice: it’s sex with her habitual boyfriend; that is not really casual… there may be something extra going on here), marital sex not OK — are not infrequent.

    Still, you belittle the husband’s suffering. If you have dealt with ‘support people’ — those who have, say, a dear one who is in cancer treatment, or who went through a traumatic experience — you know how taxing this can be, how much effort it takes, how often support people come to the verge of breaking and start themselves presenting symptoms of victimization. Add to this the fact that it is so easy to read in PTSD’s behavior, given our culture, what her husband is reading: that her love for him is disappearing, being replaced by her love for her boyfriend. And think how difficult for people in general it is to deal with the fact that we are being less loved, that we are being deemed less worthy of love.

    Frankly, I don’t see one really virtuous side here. Dan’s advice is a bit exaggerated in tone; but my impression is that these two won’t be able to live together anymore. They might be if either of them were stronger than they are (preferably both); but they apparently aren’t, so they won’t.

    Peace.

  24. To whoever said: “”I’ll repeat that, because it’s important: despite popular opinion, YOU DO NOT OWE YOUR SPOUSE SEX.”

    I agree; but, in your opinion, what do you owe your spouse? What can you sincerely and honestly get angry at, if you don’t get from your spouse?

    Or if you want, how is a spouse different from a friend?

  25. @220: “For sexual assault survivors, it is very common to be able to engage in casual sex more easily and joyously than sex in committed relationships.”

    I in no way wish to discount your expertise and experience, but you’re missing the point. PTSD has no problem with extramarital sex. She enjoys it and wants to keep on doing it. The conflict with her spouse is the problem.

    PTSD certainly has the right to go on sleeping with her boyfriend. She has the right to ask her husband to tolerate it. She even has the right to ignore her husband’s wishes that she not. She has sexual autonomy and nobody wants to take that away from her.

    She is not entitled to avoid the consequences of her actions. She is not entitled to coerce her husband- by playing on his entirely understandable compassion for her – into staying in a situation that’s clearly intolerable for him. She is not entitled to her marriage or any other relationship.

    The moral grounds as to whether it’s reasonable or not for PTSD to keep on sleeping with the boyfriend are irrelevant: if it is, but he can’t live with it, she should DTMFA. If it isn’t, and she won’t stop, he should DTMFA. Her continuing and him happily consenting is an all-expenses-paid trip to fantasyland. Dan suggested that she compassionately stop. If anyone has a fifth option, I’m all ears.

  27. Dr Phils timing could not of been better. This Thurday. This Thursday and Friday, the show is going to be about a cheating spouse, who wants his wife his wife to consider an open marriage.
    He is going to include everybody, the wife, the husband, and the pond scum who not has no problem sleeping with someone elses spouse three children are at risk of getting their family torn apart. ooops, I guess that I let my bias slip in there.
    This next part is to 223, who says that she suggests that she needs the BF as a crutch to survive. I had two close friends come home from Viet Nam who had PTSD. Before they got the help that they desperated needed, both used booze and drugs as their “crutch” to survive. Thank god they did not have you around to advise them.

  28. 226, That is the best comment so far. Dan, could use you as his proof reader. Dan may of been correct, but he was a bit blunt, maybe even a bit cruel

  30. “This next part is to 223, who says that she suggests that she needs the BF as a crutch to survive. I had two close friends come home from Viet Nam who had PTSD. Before they got the help that they desperated needed, both used booze and drugs as their “crutch” to survive. Thank god they did not have you around to advise them. “

    And what I was saying is that the sooner she gets some REAL help, the better. People do what they need to do, but she’ll be better off longterm with a good therapist than a mindless fuck. . . and the sooner she moves toward that, the better, for herself, for her husband and for her marriage.

  33. I do think the response to PTSD was out of line. For sexual assault, there is no recovery time limit (after a certain point, things should go back to normal again).

    One resource:
    http://www.rainn.org/
    Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
    I hope the above is actually helpful. Unlike Dan’s response.

  34. I do think the response to PTSD was out of line. For sexual assault, there is no recovery time limit (after a certain point, things should go back to normal again).

    One resource:
    http://www.rainn.org/
    Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
    I hope the above is actually helpful. Unlike Dan’s response.

  35. I do think the response to PTSD was out of line. For sexual assault, there is no recovery time limit (after a certain point, things should go back to normal again).

    One resource:
    http://www.rainn.org/
    Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
    I hope the above is actually helpful. Unlike Dan’s response.

  36. I do think the response to PTSD was out of line. For sexual assault, there is no recovery time limit (after a certain point, things should go back to normal again).

    One resource:
    http://www.rainn.org/
    Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network.
    I hope the above is actually helpful. Unlike Dan’s response.

  37. @234-237: “For sexual assault, there is no recovery time limit”

    Well, I guess it depends what you mean by “time limit”, exactly. If you mean “amount of time before the husband can fairly decide that he can’t just spend any more of his life with someone who regards him as disgusting”, then I’m afraid many here will just have to disagree on that point.

  38. “Funny, I thought marriage was a commitment to live love and to cherish. There have been plenty of non-sexual marriages through the ages, and plenty where attraction waned but couples still treated each other with respect and dignity, whether they had (consensual) affairs on the side or not. Have we suddenly travelled back in time to the age when a marriage can be annulled if it isn’t consummated?”

    Wow!!

    I’m laughing.

    I guess if you want a marriage where both parties have no attraction to each other, you can have one. Meaning AT BEST, their feelings towards each other would be that of good friends.

    I guess if you want to have a marriage where you consider the other person “a good friend”, more power to you.

    I don’t blame PTSD’s husband for not tolerating a marriage where his wife is happy to consider him “a good friend.”

  39. “Funny, I thought marriage was a commitment to live love and to cherish. There have been plenty of non-sexual marriages through the ages, and plenty where attraction waned but couples still treated each other with respect and dignity, whether they had (consensual) affairs on the side or not. Have we suddenly travelled back in time to the age when a marriage can be annulled if it isn’t consummated?”

    Wow!!

    I’m laughing.

    I guess if you want a marriage where both parties have no attraction to each other, you can have one. Meaning AT BEST, their feelings towards each other would be that of good friends.

    I guess if you want to have a marriage where you consider the other person “a good friend”, more power to you.

    I don’t blame PTSD’s husband for not tolerating a marriage where his wife is happy to consider him “a good friend.”

  40. For sexual assault survivors, it is very common to be able to engage in casual sex more easily and joyously than sex in committed relationships.

    The relationship with the boyfriend does not sound very casual (“It kills me to think about cutting out the one positive relationship remaining.”)

  42. I think that the “PTSD” question was most probably faker than the “two clits” question! Something stinks about it. What is worse, is that all the readers as well as Dan himself, are merely proving that the victim is always blamed! My husband and I both agree, that sex is over-rated! There are way more people living together, in marriage or common-law arrangements, that have no sex life together at all! And they are relatively happy. I think the question was written by a “friend or neighbor” who is on the outside judging and trying to understand.

  43. What’s with all of these feminazis calling Dan a misogynist and claiming that sex doesn’t matter in marriage? Why are you reading Dan’s column again? You don’t belong on Slog, PTSD should already know what she’s in for if she asks Dan’s advice: blunt honesty. I’m just going to assume you are trolls or robo responses from super feminist websites. I’m a woman and if my husband decided he wanted to be “just good friends,” I would say fine. We will remain good friends after the divorce. A real partner is there to try and make your life better, and that includes satisfaction of the most basic human instinct: sex. It goes both ways in relationships. I realize you guys are just focusing on the victimhood, but PTSD did write in because she wanted to know what to do about HER feelings and her HUSBAND’s feelings. You guys aren’t reading the letter, grow up. The world isn’t black and white.

  44. @ PTSD~ As a “non traditional” relationship therapist and blogger, I would say you need to be in therapy for yourself first. Then you should include your husband and boyfriend in the sessions so you can sort out the negative feelings you are having. If things continue in the way they are it sounds like you need to go into a re-negotiation process with your husband since he is your primary partner. Take good care of yourself and start small. Your relationships are all suffering which means you are too.
    A/s
    Alphasiren

  45. I think most of the people here have not been married very long, if at all! That letter was bogus, more than any other letter I have ever read in Dan’s column. The letterwriter starts talking about herself in the third person, stating that it is “I don’t think this is completely unheard of for someone who was relatively recently assaulted…” and that is only one reason I am sure this letter was made up. Are you all so sure if your spouse becomes impotent that it would end your marriage? If so, then your vows are meaningless. The husband can divorce her if he wants to, and the marriage is supposed to be open, so what about his “friends with benefits” who should be giving him what he wants and needs? No doubt this is just someone sticking their head in where it does not belong.

  46. I am struck more by what is missing from the letter than what is in. If the letter is in fact real rather than a fabrication, then my impression is that the wife is in material violation of the type of agreement (which prudent and thoughtful people enact before opening a marriage/relationship), has been since she formed her first emotional attachment with a partner (she still has feelings for her assailant), knows it, but does not want to abide by the terms of the agreement. It does not take a genius to anticipate the risks inherent in opening a marriage/relationship. In addition, there is more than enough literature on the subject to provide guidance for the clueless. Risks that should’ve been addressed when formulating the rules/agreement under which the marriage was opened. Only naive fools would open a marriage without such rules/agreement. The The sexual assault, in a sense, is irrelevant as it is only one of many ways that an external partner can adversely affect a marriage/primary relationship (monetary or identity theft, physical abuse, and murder are just a few of the others) and just illustrates the inability of the primaries to control the actions/behaviors of secondaries. Harsh though it may be, the primary who chose the secondary must accept responsibility for the actions of secondary and the adverse consequences of those actions (they have effectively sponsored the secondary and the secondary’s involvement with the primaries). This is especially true for the primary who proposed opening the marriage/relationship even if that person, as is likely in this case, suffers the most harm.

  47. 243: “My husband and I both agree, that sex is over-rated!

    Good for you. However, it’s clear that neither the husband nor the wife in this case agree with you. The husband still thinks sex (with him) is important. The wife still thinks sex (with the boyfriend) is important.

    “There are way more people living together, in marriage or common-law arrangements, that have no sex life together at all! And they are relatively happy. “

    Again, good for all of them. Here, however, the husband is miserable. All the other people in the world who think like you don’t make him wrong for being unhappy with the situation.

    246: “Are you all so sure if your spouse becomes impotent that it would end your marriage?”

    The wife here isn’t impotent. She is just impotent with the husband. She’s perfectly ready to go with the other guy. Bad analogy.

    Are you so sure that if your husband made it clear to you that your sexual touching made his skin crawl, and if he contrasted that message about you with how eager he was to go bang a girlfriend of his, because she makes him so incredibly happy, that you would be able to continue to live with him long-term? Why would you want to live with someone who is disgusted by you?

    “If so, then your vows are meaningless.”

    So, apparently are her vows, at least the part where she puts her husband above all others.

    “The husband can divorce her if he wants to, and the marriage is supposed to be open, so what about his “friends with benefits” who should be giving him what he wants and needs?”

    That is actually the best question you’ve asked so far. The letter utterly fails to mention HIS lovers. In as much as they would be a significant mitigating factor, that absence is telling. I get the impression that he doesn’t actually have someone on the side, at least not at anywhere near the same level of intimacy as she does. Between that conspicuous absence and her over-the-top commitment to her boyfriend, I get the impression that she was the one who wanted the marriage to be opened, that the husband went along with it grudgingly so as not to end the marriage, is pursuing his own freedom less than enthusiastically, and and now finds himself relegated quite catastrophically to a secondary within his own marriage.

    As far as giving him what he wants and needs, if that isn’t something that a spouse is supposed to do, why get married? If I can get all my needs met with friends, what’s my incentive to give one of those friends elevated status and access to half my assets?

  48. I knew someone once who was very real, and very much a genuine female, who experienced some “orgasmic phenomenon” like those described by your TMF mystery writer. As far as I know, the lady I knew had only one clit, though it was reported to be large and unusually sensitive. While many people enjoy going places by train, she LOVED riding trains, and the place they would take her…

    However, in the interest of scientific curiousity I found this link.
    (A site I’d never think of visiting if not for your column!)
    “http://www.patient.co.uk/doctor/Female-G…“

    Here’s an exerpt:
    Abnormalities of external genitalia
    •Clitoral abnormalities: these are generally rare, agenesis is extremely rare and is double clitoris or bifid clitoris. Hypertrophy can be associated with a number of intersex disorders.

  50. When something emotionally traumatic occurs, talking in the third person (disassociation) is the only way the some people can talk about it, as if the bad thing happened to someone else. They are protecting themselves and their damaged/fragile persona. It is far from perfect, but they are at least talking about it, which is a major step in the healing process.

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