I am a 33-year-old married male who has a WAM—wet and messy—fetish. I’m into mud and clay. I have played with various substances in the bathroom by myself over the years. It always ends with me masturbating myself into oblivion, wishing there were someone with me so we could sensuously rub against each other, etc., until we both climax. But I’m always alone!
I was always too shy to share this fetish with anyone until three years ago, when I told the woman I’ve now been married to for two years. She assured me that I should never be ashamed of any of my fantasies and that she would be glad to help me fulfill them. But when I went and got some clay from the art store, showed it to her, and said that we were going to be having some fun, she acted uncomfortable. Once I got the bathtub full of the “mud,” got naked, and started to coax her into the room, she totally freaked out.
Needless to say, I was mortified and disappointed, and there was $50 worth of clay in the tub that I didn’t want to go to waste. So I locked her out and decided to try to make the best of it. This backfired because soon she was pounding on the door like she was jealous that I was in there pleasuring myself. I washed off, washed everything down the drain, and opened the door, but it was too late. She was angry and wouldn’t say anything the rest of the day. Neither of us has spoken of it since.
I still have my fantasies, but now I feel I have to hide them. I have magazines and videos that I masturbate to, but it goes no further than that. So my questions are:
1. Am I some kind of a freak or weirdo?
2. Have you ever heard of this fetish before?
3. If so, why doesn’t anyone else ever write to you about similar fetishes?
4. Will I ever be able to show this side of me to my wife, or should I just hide it from her forever?
Mis-Understood Dude
Let me get this straight: Three years ago you shared your fetish and fantasies with the woman you married two years ago, and your then non-wife assured you that she wanted to help you fulfill all of your fantasies—but she completely flipped out when you filled the tub with clay. And 12 months later, you married her anyway?
I’m not endorsing the way you sprang a tub full of clay on your future wife—maybe she reacted badly because the bathroom was an unholy mess? Maybe you should’ve stopped everything and talked things through when she acted uncomfortable? Maybe the sight of you half-covered in mud and fully aroused was too much, too soon?—but why on earth didn’t you get to the bottom of this before you married this woman?
Sounds to me like you really spooked the wife-to-be, MUD, both with that “Hey, here’s a tub full of clay!” move and then, when she balked, by going right ahead with one of your solo mud-and-sex sessions instead of putting your orgasm on hold to, gee, go and inquire after the future wife’s feelings about what just went down. At that moment, she may have concluded that given a choice between her and a tub full of clay, you would choose a tub full of clay—because that’s just what you did… and yet she married you anyway.
People are fucking mysteries, man.
And in answer to your questions…
1. Yes, but your kinky weirdo freakiness is charming and harmless and not anything that you need to feel ashamed of, MUD.
2. Yes, yours is a relatively common fetish, MUD, one that exists on a continuum. Wet-and-messy play can involve substances that are harmless and represent a low barrier to entry for the loving, GGG, nonfetishist partner—mud, food, condiments, etc.—or substances that are not at all harmless and represent an impossibly high barrier to entry, e.g., shit, vomit, snot. Your kink could be much, much more problematic.
3. Other people have. Yours isn’t the first letter I’ve run from/about a weirdo freak like you.
4. You already showed this side of yourself to the wife. She knows, you know she knows, but you’re both pretending not to know what you damn well do know. To avoid becoming completely sexually estranged, TALK TO YOUR WIFE. Ask her what went wrong—how did she go from “never be ashamed… glad to help [you fulfill your fantasies]” to freaking out and pounding on doors and ignoring the mud-caked elephant in the room for more than three years?
Ask her to open up—beg her to open up—and apologize to her out of the gate for botching it, for rushing her, for being so insensitive as to prioritize the clay over her feelings after she freaked. And then tell her you want to be able to work on building a healthy, honest, and mutually satisfying sexual relationship, one that meets your needs and hers, but to do that you’re going to have to start communicating with each other again.
I have a 15-year-old daughter. I am bisexual and work in marketing for the adult industry;
both are things I explained to her when I thought she was old enough to form an understanding of what they meant.
Recently, I returned from an adult-industry convention, where I often pick up new toys. One of my gift bags contained a petite sparkly purple vibrator, and I thought, well it’s not my style but maybe I should give it to my daughter along with a lecture on masturbation being a great alternative to sex. Even though I am an open-minded and cool mom, this thought still made me uncomfortable, and I relegated the new toy to my nightstand full of gifted-from-vendors toys that aren’t my style.
I figured that no teenager wants to be given a masturbatory device by a parent. Was I wrong?
Teenage Masturbation Icky
No, TMI, you were right: No teenager wants to be given a masturbatory device by her parent. But that doesn’t mean a teenager—even your teenager—wouldn’t be delighted to have a masturbatory device. A moment of awkwardness and a little feigned teenage discomfort/disgust—perhaps even a show of discarding the device where it could be easily retrieved after Mom apologizes and retreats—is a price that most teenage girls would be willing to pay to have a brand-new sparkly purple vibrator of her very own. (Oh, and I’m thinking she knows about your drawer full of misfit sex toys. Maybe you could just tell her that anything in there that’s still in its original packaging is up for grabs.)
Some gay friends said that girls don’t ever think a penis is cute. I started asking all the chicks I know if they think cocks can be cute. Not one said yes. Gay guys think cocks are cute.
Curious Of Cock Knowledge
No man’s cock is cute—well, no man’s besides the man who got a Hello Kitty tattoo on the head. A cock can be hot, it can be beautiful, it can be vaguely threatening. But unless there’s something very, very wrong, no man’s cock is cute and no man wants to be told that his cock is cute.
Did anyone else think about sending all that clay down the tub drain? Like it just magically disappears?
Krikey–I’ll bet mud-man is a renter!
Sorry, bi chick here says cocks are fucking adorable! Soft and vulnerable, yet hard and hot… So cute! Poke one with your nose and see if you don’t get the warm fuzzies…
When I was fifteen, I was the recipient of the “awkward vibrator present” from my parents, so I have a few words of cautionary advice. First, it WAS awkward, but it didn’t scar me forever (and makes a funny story about my up-bringing). But what my folks gave me was a nine-inch long, realistic, flesh-colored (but slightly orange) vibrating dildo, complete with a realistic set of balls. But I was a fifteen-year-old virgin, and I didn’t really understand the concept of a clitoris, or that I might have fun using it on the OUTSIDE of my naughty bits. I spent one awkward evening trying to shove the giant thing inside my virginal self (without lube, of course), gave up, frustrated, confused, and in a bit of pain, and never touched the thing again.
I vote for the vibrator (provided it is not a huge, orange, intimidating faux-penis) and a good, detailed book for women on how to orgasm. Just stick them on her bed stand, and never mention them again.
@24, I’m with you. I bet the guy is so ashamed of his fetish that he doesn’t know how to talk with his wife about it in a way that makes what he wants to do seem appealing. By not talking about it with her, though, he makes it more likely she’ll act like his fetish is something shameful. It’s a catch-22 that can only be solved if he gets up the courage to talk with his partner in a positive way about how both of them can get their needs met.
in all earnestness: i don’t get how folks develop these weird, extremely specific fetishes. not judging; i’m just a person who likes to understand WHY people to the things they do, and dan’s column has always been terribly enlightening. dan and friends, what’s the psych behind this? how do you get from, i dunno, kerr jars filled with chicken’s feet to jizzing?
OMG. MUD is a douche. I’m sorry, but Wet and Messy is a weird fetish to most vanilla people. It isn’t well socialized (as in exploited in MSM), and isn’t what people expect when they say “you can share your fantasies, lover boy.”
And, even if it is, they don’t want it to be SPRUNG on them. Talk about it. Ease them into the idea. Bring it up as a positive thing. “I have a fantasy about doing it in mud. It would be so hot to be surrounded by this slick substance covering our body.” But, don’t pull the clueless straight guy thing of “Hey, baby come here! Check out this tub of mud! Does it make you horny baby?”
I’ll bet you dime to dollar that MUD’s wife has either some bisexual latencies (hoping he had a threesome fetish) or is a closeted kinkster (hoping he had a regular old BDSM thing) trying to get the green light to explore THOSE fantasies as opposed to diving in the mud.
I would imagine most, if not all, guys want their cocks to be called impressive, rather than cute.
Y’all do understand that most women are too smart to tell you that cocks are cute, right?
Als, @20 What the heck kind of clay is that? Is it even safe to have in our bodies? Is it going to ruin my tub?
Awesome. *applause*
Why would anyone freak out about someone liking clay? I don’t think I could be turned on by if but it is definately sensual and I can’t imagine how it could be anything but fun fun fun. Maybe she was just worried about clogging the drain.
“I will help you act our your fantasies” does not require her to go full throttle in a bathtub of mud right out of the gate. Her reaction is an indication that it was too much too soon, and his handling of it only compounded the problems. I’d just like to echo the other advice of starting small and working your way up to bringing your ultimate fantasy scenario to life. Mud mask was a good suggestion. Maybe play in the shower, so you can rinse off faster? Or she just rubs the clay on you at first, or vice versa. Clay handjob? Get a potter’s wheel and recreate the scene in Ghost? What woman wouldn’t try that?
Whatever way you go, you need to go slow and help her to eroticize it too, to whatever extent she can. As someone who has a pretty extreme fetish, albeit not one that Dan considers “too far,” I can’t stress enough the importance of treating this like a lighthearted bonus game you get to play in your sex life. Even more than that, being tuned in to her comfort level and knowing when not to push is invaluable. I know it can be hard to be forthright and get past your shame. Good luck awkward messy fetish dude!!!
I gave my 12 year old daughter a back massager and told her to maybe stash it in her nightstand before she has sleepovers, because some girls use them to masturbate and her friends might be shocked to see it. I hope she got the hint. I also showed her the Taylor Momsen thing about how girls need to learn themselves and told her how stupid it was that people disagreed with the sentiment. She’s a bright girl and I hope she figures it out.
On a side note, how stupid is it that there are “Romeo & Juliet” laws specifically permitting underage sex (as there should be) but it’s illegal for a minor to enter a sex toy shop and buy a vibrator (which is infinitely less risky)?
Damn, MUD dude, you couldn’t start small by offering her a facial or mask. No, the clay kind, not the giz kind.
I’m definitely with other commenters in saying I feel like the divide between what the wife said and how she reacted are largely because of the way it was presented. I like to think I’m GGG myself (never had a kinky partner, but I’ve done everything to accommodate their vanilla desires), and am the mildest of kinky, and no matter how chill I like to think I am, I would NOT be prepared to deal with something like that my first time. Not even the fact that it’s something that doesn’t arouse me, if someone who had similar kinks to me wanted us to go from vanilla to ‘okay so here, you’re tied down, i’m going to smack you around a lot and call you names and tease you and make you beg for the privilege of sucking my cock,’ I’d probably balk. And to be fair, that’s more communication than it sounded like what went on.
You start slow. Explain a little bit if you know why it turns you on. Let her be in control of the mud/clay at first, try using maybe one of those clay masks if she uses beauty products so she can feel more comfortable and in control. Maybe try some sort of lube/oil on both of your bodies making out in the shower so she can get used to the sensation of something on her, and can see it as sort of sexy.
But for fucks sake, jumping in the bathtub full of clay and expecting her to just do everything you want without even really telling her what you want? I was trying to think of a hyperbolic example to compare it to, but that’s really just about all you could do to spook her away!
I have to echo the point other women have made about infection fears. It’s one thing for a guy to want to have sex in the mud, it’s another thing for a woman to contemplate mud getting in her vagina. Unless he’s willing to match her vaginal infection with, say, an Icy Hot handjob, he should explain HOW he is going to protect her from gynecological harm, or accept that his fantasy is outside the realm of possibility. It’s like ATM, maybe good in fantasy but not in real life.
I don’t care if my woman calls my cock “cute” or calls it “angry”, just so long as she calls it on a regular basis and enjoys sucking it and riding it. I’ve heard lots of adjectives used and never taken offense at ANY of them, because they have all been intended in a positive way. Just another example of reverse alchemy with someone trying to turn gold into lead. If your woman (or man) likes your cock, don’t question why.
Charlie, that’s sick. Hate to tell you but teen girl sleepovers are not mass masturbation sessions. I don’t think you should be around any teen girls, whether they are your daughter or your daughter’s friends.
charlie, you are *awesome*! How I longed for a “back massager” when I was a younger, virginal lass, but was too chicken to buy one! And as one of the other posters has noted, for a virgin, a huge 9″ vibe is a bit much for a lot of teens. A sparkly purple one might be just what the doctor ordered…if the embarassment can be overcome. Guess a lot depends on their relationship, my kids are still so young, I don’t know how I am going to handle those “talks”.
And guys can be cute; my bf is cute….and sexy, and FUCKING HOT….but his cock is not. His cock is his mighty weapon of pleasure!!!! >:)
@TMI: Yes, your daughter would likely feel awkward and embarrassed but the upside to that is that it will reinforce the idea that she can talk to you about anything no matter how embarrassing. If you do decide to leave it “anonymously” I agree with everyone else that a book about masturbation is a fantastic idea. I just want to add that it would be a great idea to include a bottle of lube (since not all lubes are safe for all toys) AND a bottle of toy cleaner (since using whatever is in the bathroom could cause health issues).
WTF? Cocks are adorable! They look like weird little dudes!
MUD should check out THeLittle Red Day Spa. They have a mud-play thing that couples can indulge in, then shower, then hit th ehot tub, get a massage or whatever. The mud is a little grainy, so it feels like a salt scrub, and has the by-product of being really good for your sking.
ps – sorry for my lousy typing.
@26 : I completely disagree… my girlfriend has some of the cutest little genitalia there is to be seen. I couldn’t really say that a penis is all that cute, unless it is on a child… where it is a non-sexual device.
@54 – good advice! also – giving your daughter something cute (but not penis shaped!) would, I think, lessen the awkward factor.
what are your thoughts on age? were you too young? too old? I was thinking 14-15, kind of as a graduation-from-middle-school present (!) or does that send out the wrong signals about high school!?
I think that some guys ahve cute cocks…but it is not something I would ever say to any of them…men have such big hang ups about their equipment
Sorry, but I gotta say, I think how MUD handled it is so much worse than people are thinking. I had to look it up, but he bought about 50 pounds of clay.
“I went and got some clay from the art store, showed it to her . . .” That’s 50 pounds of clay, presumably still in its packages, stacked on the diningroom table.
“she acted uncomfortable.” “I got the bathtub full of the ‘mud,’ . . .” So after he realizes that she is not reacting well, he proceeds to haul then entire 50 pounds of clay to the bathroom, unpack it, mix it with enough water to get muddy, which has got to be a huge job . . . All the while completely ignoring how she is reacting.
What is she doing this whole time? Standing there realizing that the guy she has committed herself to is either autistic or a sociopath. Her freak-out when he emerged naked and expected sexual favors was the natural and may I say rather restrained and moderate end-point of this.
The most amazing part of this whole story is that she went ahead and married him. A woman with such spectacularly bad emotional skills wouldn’t get past the first date. Sheesh.
The writer asked whether or not any women THINK cocks are cute. Dan’s answer was worthless, merely insisting that no man wants to be told his cock was cute. Maybe so, but that’s not what she asked about.
And the obvious answer, of course, is that soft cocks are cute and hard ones are hot.
I think my husband’s cock is adorable (when flaccid).
Beautiful.. is the word I use for my man’s penis. I never felt that way about another. I as much as I love cock have never really found them attractive. but I tell you what my man’s is beautiful and her loves the complement. I think if I said “cute” it would have all kinds of weird/bad connotations.
Beautiful.. is the word I use for my man’s penis. I never felt that way about another. I as much as I love cock have never really found them attractive. but I tell you what my man’s is beautiful and her loves the complement. I think if I said “cute” it would have all kinds of weird connotations.
Since the mom works in the sex toy industry and the daughter knows it, the mom can always say something like, “Give this to one of your friends, but don’t tell them that it was from me. I don’t want to know who you gave it to, so the police don’t arrest me for trying to seduce an underage girl or something.” There. The daughter can use it for herself or give it to one of her friends. Easy.
Beautiful.. is the word I use for my man’s penis. I never felt that way about another. I as much as I love cock have never really found them attractive. but I tell you what my man’s is beautiful and he loves the complement. I think if I said “cute” it would have all kinds of weird connotations.
I did not mean to post that so many times ha ha but I am that enthusiastic.
@77 Spot on. As soon as I read the price tag on the clay my jaw dropped. This wasn’t a little bit of clay for slicking a body up. This was a full immersion event. No, no, no, you idiot. When he told his wife he liked the idea of “sensuously rubbing against each other” while covered in a wet, slick substance she was probably envisioning a sexy spa treatment rather than fucking Swamp Thing.
And when your apparently GGG partner starts looking uncomfortable when you bring in your fifty God damned pounds of clay, you stop. You ask her if this is too soon. You talk things over. You don’t fill up the fucking tub and jump in.
Jesus. I have many kinks and I’ve introduced plenty of far wilder things than this to my boyfriend, but I’ve done so by talking about it every step of the way and making sure he knows how grateful and lucky I feel. I sure as hell would never spring something on him, ignore his obvious discomfort, and then lock myself in the bathroom to masturbate.
And this, MUD, is why I get to fulfill my fantasies with my partner.
If someone told me my cock was cute, I’d kick him in the nuts.
@85 Preach on. No, really, keep going! This is the advice Dan missed, and would be good for most people to hear, if they don’t know it.
@68 I don’t think that’s quite how Charlie intended but somehow now the image of a bunch of teenage girls masturbating in unison at a sleepover won’t leave my mind….thanks… (and this from a Kinsey 4/5 guy…)
I’m with everyone else. MUD was an idiot in the way he approached the whole thing.
Step 1: “Honey, I have a kink and it involves us getting literally dirty together”
Step 2: ????
Step 3: RAGING MUD SOAKED BONER!!!!
DO NOT SKIP STEP 2.
Step 2 is crucial.
I cannot stress enough the importance of Step 2. Step 2 is made up of little steps to Step 3. You discuss it, in MUD’s case, maybe some chocolate body paint to begin with, a bowl of mud in the bathroom to rub on one another. You have to build up the experience as a good one for your partner, not mortify them for years to come.
Unless your kink is to emotionally scar your partner and live in a relationship where one of you still feels freaked out and the other one is left with unfulfilled desires- DO NOT SKIP STEP 2.
82, that sounds soooo much shiftier than straight up giving it to her daughter, ahahahahaha.
Now, see, I don’t consider myself even a little bit kinky, but if I came home to my husband/BF “half covered in mud and fully aroused”, I just don’t see where the freaking out comes in. He’s told her about it, she’s said she was OK with it – even if it was not really what she’d had in mind, I don’t see what the problem was. It sounds kinda hot, honestly. And even if not, even if you are a bit startled and not sure you like this idea, you give it a go, you don’t freak.
But what I *really* can’t understand here is that neither of them dragged it out into the light and discussed it further. She’s pounding on the door – what happened then? They just dropped it? What kind of way is that to run a marriage?
I’d say that if we are throwing fault around, she’s at fault for freaking so badly, he’s at fault for going into his jerkoff session rather than trying to calm her, and they are both at fault for not talking it out – if not that night, the next day.
Cocks may not be cute, but some are cuter than others.
I feel sorry for MUD, but good fucking christ did he handle that situation badly. As others have noted above, 50 goddamn dollars worth of clay?! And then, to walk into the bathroom to see the man you love all crazy-eyed with lust while he sits in a tub of WHAT THE FUCK DID YOU DO TO MY BATHTUB YOU NEVER TOLD ME IT’D BE A WHOLE FUCKING SWAMP’S WORTH OF CLAY and you didn’t put a dropcloth or anything down to protect the floor!!! and holy fucking shit are those my GOOD towels sitting 2 inches away from the Creature in his Black Lagoon?!? why can’t we just talk about this a little more because the thought that all this mud might cause irreparable hard to my pussy and my plumbing is freaking me out… oh, no, you’re just going to lock the door and masturbate feverishly even though I’m super freaked out, fine, fine, I’m just never going to speak of this again.
I feel for her. I feel bad for him too, but you have to ease people into things.
I still think people are missing the most disturbing part of his letter. She didn’t come home and find him all set up, like rose-petals on the bed only kinkier. No, he barged around the house setting it all up in front of her, AFTER seeing that she was uncomfortable about it.
Most of this has already been said before probably, but …
On MUD, I read the first letter as he met this woman, told her about the fetish three years ago and married her a year later. Then he waited two years after the wedding to spring the actual experience on her.
Honestly, I think he’s a massive jerk. I don’t even find his fetish that wacky and could easily see myself participating in it. But he’s a total dickhead. I’d divorce him for being emotionally leotarded.
1) You don’t just spring it on her and inform her it’s going to happen “right now.” He needed to broach the topic and GIVE HER A CHOICE in advance. 2) You don’t go “full tub” the first time around – you ease into things. 3) When your significant other seems uncomfortable with the direction you are taking you BACK THE FUCK OFF. 4) If you have freaked out and disturbed your significant other you write off the measly $50 worth of clay and ask to discuss the matter, not lock the door and spank the monkey. After all, a divorce is a hell of a lot more expensive.
Dude, you need a shrink. Not because of your fetish, but because of your horrendous interpersonal skills. I’m thinking that’s more what’s kept you isolated than your rather boring fetish.
TMI, you sound like a great mom. Leave it somewhere she will find it and have the masturbation conversation in a completely separate time and place. She’ll put two and two together.
I beg to differ. Some cocks are just plain adorable.
Well, I’m under-gifted in the cock department, meaning I rather got the short end of the stick. And telling me I’m big would just be a ridiculous lie. I think my cock is very cute. In fact, it’s fricken adorable, thank you very much.
#89 (Mistress D) nailed it.
My local art store sells 50lb boxes of clay for $22.50 and I’ve seen clay for as little as $15 for a 50lb box, so $50 worth of clay could have been 100lb or more.
And you definitely don’t want to send that much clay down a regular household drain. That leads to nasty nasty plumbing problems.
When I was 16 my mom and her friends(who I had grown up with) went to a sex shop and got me a pocket rocket vibrator. I was totally confused and a little confused, and it sat in my sock drawer for about a month before I was even able to take it out of my drawer. Even if there was a brief moment of being weirded out it was totally worth it for the hours of fun and sexual exploration that I got out of it, and when I turned 20 I thanked my mom for it.
So in short, adult industry mom, go for it! your daughter will appreciate the power you’ll be giving her(eventually!)
My mans cock isn’t cut but it does taste like fresh baked cookies.
Really! Yum!