Any time I have relationship questions, I always ask my inner Dan Savage, and he never leads me astray! My boyfriend and I have had a wonderful relationship for six years. We have had “girlfriends” in the past who were involved with both of us simultaneously. He recently met a girl and they instantly clicked. They have been on a few dates—nothing physical yet—and she seems infatuated with him. She is aware that he lives with me/we are together, but I’ve yet to meet her. I am fine with them dating, but I have a few questions:
1. My guy and I share everything. He’s shown me her texts and told me about her life. We both feel slightly uncomfortable with me knowing such personal things about her without meeting her, but we don’t want to limit the intensely open communication we have earned with each other. How much am I entitled to know about her/them, and how can he tell me about her without being disrespectful?
2. Can I meet her? Under what circumstances?
3. Can this end well for her? Every girl we’ve dated has ended up hurt because our relationship with each other is always more important than she is. I worry this girl will be devastated when he doesn’t leave me for her. Should he squelch all the romance now? She’s had a rough few years, and he doesn’t want to add to her problems. Should he even consider bringing her into our relationship? Things always end badly for the other girl, and I don’t want to hurt her.
Curious And Respectful
Your outer Dan Savage won’t lead you astray either, CAR, but he will smack you around:
1. Your guy needs to tell this girl that he shares absofuckinlutely everything with you. He needs to tell her that he’s in a successful open relationship—successful for you two, anyway—and that he has no intention of limiting the “intensely open communication” that has made your relationship work. She needs to know that you’re hearing about their dates and the details of her life, reading every text, etc.
2. Sure, you can meet her—you absofuckinlutely should meet her, CAR, as soon as possible. How about under coffee circumstances? Or drinks circumstances? Or dinner circumstances?
3. Um… gee. If every girl you two have ever “dated” has wound up hurt, CAR, then a reasonable person might conclude that YOU’RE DOING THIS OPEN-RELATIONSHIP SHIT ALL WRONG. Your “wonderful” open relationship may be working for you, but if it’s not working for them, CAR, then it’s not working.
So your outer Dan Savage is ordering you to refrain from inviting anyone else into your “wonderful” relationship until you get a handle on what’s so un-fucking-wonderful about it for your thirds. If you can’t come up with anything—if it’s really not anything you’re doing wrong—then you should have a few laminated cards made that read, “He’ll never leave me for you, his relationship with me will ALWAYS be more important than his relationship with you, and this will most likely end in tears for you. Enjoy the ride.”
Finally, CAR, if this woman is reeling from a rough few years and she can’t handle more heartache right now and everyone you’ve ever messed around with has gotten hurt and you elect to “bring her into your relationship” despite my advice, then at least have the decency to stop pretending that you give a shit about the people you mess around with. Fuck her, fuck her over, move on—but don’t stand there wringing your hands, pretending that you’re just heartsick about the damage you two are doing to people.
My 20-year-old brother is gay. He came out to my mom—she found his Facebook profile; he hasn’t come out to anyone else in the family, but we all found out anyway. (I already knew because I would be treated to some interesting porn whenever I opened the browser on the family computer after he used it.) I’ve voiced my acceptance of homosexuality while he is around, but he hasn’t come out. Should I pull him aside and tell him that the family is okay with him?
His Straight Big Brother
If you wanted to pull your brother aside to tell him the same shit every homo on earth has heard ten million times by age 20—”I love you, bro, but Jesus said that every time two dudes get it on, an angel gets an anal fissure”—I would advise you to keep your mouth shut. But since you’re supportive, and mom already knows, and it’s on his freakin’ Facebook page, pull the little coward aside. Tell him everybody knows, everybody loves him, but everybody is sick of having to pretend that they don’t know what they damn well do.
I’m a hetero guy in my late 20s. I’ve been dating a woman I am crazy about for two months. We waited a little while to have sex, but once we finally did, during the ensuing pillow talk she probed my general fantasies and I dropped that I sometimes fantasize about superheroines. Despite the fact that these fantasies are otherwise very vanilla, she freaked out and said it reflects some kind of deep psychological problems and fundamental immaturity.
Dan, these women are drawn to appeal to what the inner pubescent boy in every hetero guy wants! Can you weigh in on whether there’s something unhealthy about a grown man fantasizing about Supergirl and Zatanna?
Superheroines Unconsciously Permeate Erotic Romps
There’s nothing unhealthy about a grown man fantasizing about superheroines, SUPER, but there is something deeply disturbing about a grown man using the present tense the way you did in your letter. You wrote “a woman I am crazy about,” when what you clearly should have said was “a woman I was crazy about.”
She drew you out after sex and encouraged you to open up to her about your sexual fantasies, and then she stomped on you like that? That was an asshole move on her part, borderline emotionally/sexually abusive, and I hope you arranged to have the door hit her in the ass on her way out of your apartment.
I love it when you invent words, and I want to nominate a nameless phenomenon that sometimes afflicts boring het guys like me (as well as all other guys): The blockage that is created by dried semen on the tip of your dick after sex. You wake up at 3:00 a.m. to drop a line after dozing off after sex, and either the urine gets blocked for a moment and then bursts out like a geyser (which kinda hurts) or the blockage is only partial and the piss sprays off at some crazy angle and gets all over the floor or the walls (which kinda sucks). This phenomenon should have a name!
Can’t Spell Neologism Without Gism
I’m tempted to ask SUPER what his girlfriend’s name is, CSNWG, because if anyone on earth deserves to be forever associated with a crusty blockage that has to be pissed away after sex, it’s her. But I’m sure my readers—the folks behind “santorum”—can come up with something better. Gang?
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
Also, I am only bothered when it is an innane/insensitive comment or pejorative about such a subject (when they say it, and why is it that people who are bigoted tend to be religious — when religion is supposed to instill the opposite in people). And even then, I take it (to myself) as “They don’t know any better, and I have no way of changing their minds.”
I’m seriously getting onto a soapbox no, but I’m bisexual and I could honestly live either way. I hate being stuck having to choose between one or the other, it honestly would be much simpler if I was totally gay – and wouldn’t have to worry.
Part of it is that I don’t want to know their answers (already feel that my dad’s love is conditional, don’t want to have to see if that is true for granny), especially if I am not bothered immensely by it.
Furthermore, I haven’t really had any positive experiences with my mom knowing — again it is an excuse. But why the hell change if NOTHING will be different and might potentially get worse?
No amount of touting “self-honesty” will change my mind; it doesn’t help any that I have worse problems than this one (minor and trivial issue in comparison). I don’t want sympathy, and my original intention was just to comment on the eeriness of the parallels between this one person’s life and mine. Preview of my problems: imagine the worst (horrifying) thought you could think of (play it over in vivid detail over and over again until something reminds you of it — like a mind fuck except your subconscious is doing it to you) and try being helpless in the process — repeat until the misery overwhelms you until you reach out to a shrink; that is one of my problems. I am not saying that my life is the worst (certainly not true, but it can be); I was just (outloud, admittedly) drawing conclusions not looking for platitudes (no offense). I am at fault; but couldn’t help but post something.
For CSNWG’s issue, I’m voting for Palinite: a crusty remnant that needs to be pissed away.
@54 & 90 – yes, yes. Other holes in her story: If they were truly open and healthy, she wouldn’t be asking Dan questions 1 or 2, she’d be working that out with her partner. She should know there aren’t strict “poly rules”, the rules depend on the individuals involved, like any relationship. Also, why is “girlfriends” in quotes? She’s the only “real” girlfriend? And – it’s not up to her whether or not her guy “squelches the romance”, that is up to him (if they were truly open, that is).
That said, I’ve been in a healthy open relationship with a guy for 14+ years, and he’s had a few good 1-3 year relationships end in heartache because the women would eventually realize they were really monogamous. No bad drama, just, “I thought I could do this but it’s not for me.” Still very sad for both of them, but he’s honest from the start and they chose to date him anyway, so what can you do? Just saying, just because many of CaR’s b/f’s previous relationships ended badly it doesn’t mean he/they did anything wrong. Other women’s expectations aren’t the couple’s problem (assuming they are totally honest from the start). My guy’s exes understood that even if I wasn’t around, he still wouldn’t be monogamous with them, so the problem wasn’t about me or us, it was simply incompatibility. Sadly though, I don’t think this is the case with CaR. She seems to want monogamy light/swinging, not a fully open relationship with all the trust and communication required to make it healthy and sustainable.
[sorry about the long rant]
SUPER’s girlfriend should feel lucky that he simply fantasizes about superheroines and that’s it. Chris Claremont, who actually writes for superhero comics every now and again, likes to get fisted by women dressed as Storm from the X-Men. No, really. There are some prostitutes who could tell you some stories.
But either way if her knee-jerk reaction to “I sometimes have sexual fantasies about superheroes” is “There’s something wrong with you,” that’d be a deal-breaker for me. It’s not really my thing, despite being a comics nerd myself, but I’d be more than a little pissed at the idea of having wasted two months with someone like that and didn’t see it coming.
The GF who was upset by the superhero fantasy probably has a problem with all the photoshopped images that dudes drool over in the media too. Give her a break b/c it’s not easy to make sense of how what men fantasize about looks nothing like what most real women look like. I used to be jealous of Jessica Rabbit. Might still be if my boyfriend told me he fantasized about her.
Great Caesar’s Ghost! Dude wasn’t even asking her to dress up or role play. She asked him for some of his fantasies and he told her one that’s only slightly less vanilla than “spooning” and considerably more vanilla than “threesome with two girls.”
What possible fantasy could any human being have that wouldn’t freak her out if this one managed to do it? And don’t go around asking what your boyfriend’s fantasies are if you clearly can’t handle the fact that he has any at all. If he didn’t have fantasies he wouldn’t be sleeping with you – and you’d both be better off.
Voting against sement. It’s great, but I’m with 72: too hard to differentiate between that and cement. Having to stress SEEment instead of suhMENT is a pain; makes the jokes instantly annoying. Also, possible confusion between “I got sement in my dick” and “I got cement in my dick” could result in unpleasantness. Santorum’s great because there’s no ambiguity.
I liked “crusty pickle” — I’m wondering if there’s a way to bring the political thing into that….
marjaw, you know that Jessica Rabbit is a cartoon and that there is no way for some to cheat on you with “her” right? How can you be jealous of an attraction to a fictional character, even if they are drawn with ridiculous proportions?
And for the record… we might like our super-heroines big-boobed and scantily clad, but its not straight men buying all those photoshopped images of ‘real’ women in Cosmo and… whatever other magazines photoshop women’s waists and thighs into oblivion. (Star? Us Weekly?)
“Your “wonderful” open relationship may be working for you, but if it’s not working for them, CAR, then it’s not working.”
I wouldn’t immediately assume the open relationship isn’t working. One of the things that I have learned from my experience of open relating is that just because my heart has started doing backflips over someone doesn’t mean they will fit into my life/lovestyle. Historically I have tried to make this new love fit into my existing model and consistently it hasn’t worked. So thus I’ve decided that I can keep my love for these people but it is the better part of wisdom to not bring them into the fold of my inner world lest I risk having all of their issues with open relating blowing my currently good relationships apart.
Just read this about the twosome who hurt their thirds. It sounded fake to me too, but in the column it’s treated as hypocrisy rather than fraud. What a funny world we live in.
I suggest sement be changed to semenent to clarify the difference between cement.
@133, I can get behind that.
I also thought of “Bristol plug.”
Erg, I meant 113. Semenent.
How about the “Falwell”?
I was told that there already is a word for that: “Furmunda”. It’s not very funny, but I think it’s a real word.
So we add another freaking homonym to the English language — get the hell over it!: Accept, except; they’re, their, there; its and it’s — there are others that I can’t think of right at this second.
Santorum on your face for whoever doesn’t like sement.
Since it’s a pain in the ass when your dick clogged like that would something like Cum Condom work?
The crusty blockage that has to be pissed away after sex should be named after Fred Phelps of the westboro church.
Behold – I present to you, THE PHELPS PLUG
Straight Big Brother should also clue his sibling in on how to clear his browser history. If his mother found out he’s guy from Facebook, he’s way too clueless to be using the family computer for porn viewing.
The crusty blockage that has to be pissed away after sex should be named after Fred Phelps of the westboro church.
Behold – I present to you, THE PHELPS PLUG
Sorry, I meant “found out he’s GAY from Facebook”…
To the people who think Dan should go easy on SUPER’s girlfriend:
I’m sorry, but when you ask someone to reveal their innermost secrets, you don’t laugh or otherwise go ballistic on them when they do.
That is, if you ever want to hear any of their other fantasies. Or for that matter, expect *them* to ever tell *anyone* about their fantasies again. See also: Closet Crossdressers.
What the hell was she expecting in the first place? Maybe she’s bi or something and was using this as a lead-in to a threesome.
The crusty blockage that has to be pissed away after sex should be the Palin Blockage. She seems to block everything else that would relieve us in this country
Sarah P?
I’m surprised no one has addressed this yet, and that Dan totally missed it himself:
(I already knew because I would be treated to some interesting porn whenever I opened the browser on the family computer after he used it.)
After older bro’ gives the ‘it’s okay to be gay’ speech, he should end up w/ “And STOP leaving your porn on the friggin’ family computer!!!”
Just because you close the browser doesn’t mean it’s gone forever. The next person who starts Firefox is going to be welcomed w/ the last image desired by the previous user. It don’t matter if it’s straight or gay or latex feathered flower-arranging inter-racial speed-dating porn. If you’re going to watch it on the family ‘puter, learn how to clean the history file!
And to SUPER & the rest of the SL readers, what’s the new name for prodding your sex partner into revealing their sexual fantasies & then immediately dumping on them for having those fantasies? I’d just go w/ Dan’s (non-gender-specific) ‘asshole-move,’ although I might add a ‘major-‘ prefix.
Can we plllleeease name the jiz blockage ‘Palin’??
“Santorum’s great because there’s no ambiguity. ” HAR!
@54 –
No, not the only one. She is soooooo not threatened AT ALL by this soon to be heart-broken girl, it’s really just pity she feels for her, cuz she is soooooo not threatened…
CAR’s relationship seems to be one-sided open… no mention of how her other boyfriends.
With regard to sement, as others have said, the written is good, the said not so. Nobody would recognize the syllable stress for what it meant.
Thanks, Dan, for a good column.
Random uncalled for playback of auditory memory from my childhood, of Ellie May from “The Beverly Hillbillies” talking about going for “a swim in the Sement pond.”
Aaaagh! Brain bleach!
I voted for sement before, but almost equally good is spitzer. Spitzer, hahahaha!
Never had Sement before. Maybe you just need to take a pee after.
I thought Dan was hard on the unicorn hunting couple. I am guessing if 2 is tough to make work then 3 is even harder. So maybe their problem is that poly is HARD. That doesn’t mean you quit trying. Perhaps they could be conscious and more considerate, more open and honest there is little evidence they are doing anything wrong. So the reaming out was out of line.
On the coming out thing, doesn’t putting your sexual orientation on Facebook as “GAY” mean you have already come out? Is there some requirement that every single family member etc gets a special speech and has to throw a coming out party?
The superhero hater is a real bitch. That is one of the worst thing you can do to somebody- draw them out and then blindside their perfectly reasonable fantasy. The cunt should hear my rape, mind control, and crucifixion fantasies if she wants to know about “deep psychological problems” and “fundamental immaturity.”
Crusty blockage= palinPAC
#74’s probably onto something. It makes no sense to ask what someone’s fantasy is and react that way, especially since the fantasy is pretty un-weird. But the girlfriend may have been expecting a specific act she could engage in with her boyfriend, and she may feel threatened that his fantasy involves an idealized female body almost no woman has. She may well have thought that his preference for a super-heroine was immature, and in fact, I’ll bet this fantasy started when he was a pre-teen.
So even though she massively overreacted and behaved assholishly, I think the letter writer should talk to her about this before kicking to the curb a woman he is “crazy about.”
I’m torn between seconding the nomination that any dry old crusty semen clogging a guy’s dick be called a “Phelps”, or calling it a Sprigg (after Peter Sprigg of the FRC): ’cause either way until ya man up and just piss it off, you don’t go freely.
Crusty blockage=PalinPAC
“that lovin’ was bomb, but the resulting palinPAC in my member caused me to piss on the bathroom curtains.”
I’m leaning towards naming that any dry old crusty semen clogging a guy’s dick be called a Sprigg (after Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council). But I have to say, another part of me is so seconding the nomination of calling it a “Phelps”.
Either way, until ya man up and just go piss it off you won’t go freely.
Why not call that blockage a Glenn Beckage? Beckage is close enough to blockage that it’ll be easy to say, and both the man and the bodily function involve bodily fluid flying from an orifice. In one case, urine from the penis, in the other shit from the mouth.
“Sement” is already a sex term. Look it up on Urban Dictionary.
There should definitely be a more creative idea than that. I like Phelps…
Maybe SUPER’s (hopefully ex) gf felt threatened by his perfectly harmless fantasy, because she doesn’t think she would do justice to a superhero costume herself. (“Dammit! He likes HOT girls? Guess I’m out of the game…think I’ll belittle him, to make myself feel superior.”)
Serious asshattery going on, there.
SUPER – please find yourself a good GGG girl who will support you – bet you can find one who will rock a superhero costume as well. There are plenty of us who would be happy to indulge such a charming fetish for our man.
To SUPER – she asked you about fantasies after the first time you had sex, and when you talked about one that is not much kinkier than wearing lingerie from Victoria’s Secret, she went off? Definitely something odd going on there. In your shoes, I wouldn’t bail on the relationship, but make sure to re-visit the topic “when I was talking about the superheroine fantasy, I was thinking maybe you dress up and we have some fun.” Again, like some other posters have mentioned, it might be more about the idea of “not me” is what is bugging her.
Man, I wish my husband had fantasies like this! We have a lot of fun, but he is basically cool with my fantasies and whatever I want. Sometimes, it would be fun to have him tell me what to do or what he wants (other than, you know, getting me naked) 🙂
Ha, man… That one girl “freaked out” over her boyfriend’s “psychological problems and fundamental immaturity,” which may very well mean she laughed and said “oh my god, so you have a cartoon fetish. That’s so childish.” So of course, she’s a CUNT who needs be HATEFUCKED and subjected to other people’s rape and crucifixion fetishes.
@135, when CAR turned up as a SLOTD, someone pointed out that the couple should be looking for people experienced with poly, and who have other support systems in their lives…
@bsmaster112 – please tell some of your real life friends how you are feeling… You sound in crisis, and I’m hoping you can find the strength to ask for help. You are not to blame for your life sucking; life just sucks sometimes and you have to just take it day by day.
Sement = Awesome!
bsmaster112: Been there, done that. I got tired of my family asking to meet my girlfriend (or why I didn’t have one). If you’re not going through that, fine, but I think your therapist will ask you to be honest with yourself and those around you. It’s the only way to be mentally healthy. I think you should look into a group of people from Put this on the {map}
http://www.putthisonthemap.org/ They might be able to help you.
CAR: Everyone should be forewarned that they are getting into a poly relationship. For the most part, they work better that way (thanks Dan).
SUPER: You were done wrong. If she didn’t want to know the answer, she should never have asked the question.
…of course she’s an insensitive jerk who overreacted, but jesus christ.
“The gf’s reaction is too much, but that is not necessarily reason to drop her like a carrier of Sigourney Weaver’s Alien. Gf may just need some education, transformation, and graduation, like the rest of us.”
Not. Going. To. Work.
The problem is not just that she has sexual hang-ups, but that she engages in psychological violence; i.e: inviting him to open up about his private sexual fantasies, then when he does, suddenly morphing into a living Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM III), virtually annihilating him with a tone of authoritarian and clinical certitude. Staying in the relationship and thinking that by “being patient” and trying to “educate” her will change the situation is a prescription for further and even more damaging abuse.
@ 147, thank you for your candor — but they have never asked me about a girlfriend. With regards to those experiences I have been oddly blessed with being in the right place in the right time (5th grade, had my arms around two older girls — and of course my dad saw). My reproductive success is only important to my mom (who wants grandchildren to spoil and is okay with me). I am always up for being mentally healthy, but I have obstacles I need to face way before I even think about telling the rest of my family. And I am surprised that no one has brought up the chicken-shittery of coming out via Facebook — if my family REALLY wants to know (they are friended after all, and it is information that we share) it is clearly there. But, at this point if one more straw breaks my back I’m letting the inner bitch in me out — and everyone is going to have to pucker up (above and below) because it will not be pretty.
Dick Boogers.
Also – the first pee after sex, always sit down. Forget about whether it looks wrong for a dude. It beats explaining why you spent 5 minutes cleaning the bathroom floor. SO worth it.
@145 Dude, *one* guy called her a cunt, and he said she should HEAR his fantasies, not “be tied down and forcibly subjected to them”. NOBODY said she should get hatefucked. Nobody’s hating on vanilla girls, they’re just confused as to what this girl wouldn’t consider irredeemably, beyond the pale, way-too-kinky. I mean, honestly, “superheroines” is on the order of “light spanking” and “chocolate syrup”. Hell, it’s slightly less kinky than “sexy schoolgirls”, which is so thoroughly mainstream it hardly counts.