Savage Love

I’m a 38-year-old straight
male in a long-term relationship. We have two children. My
spouse and I have been physically disconnected for years. This led to
some rather sleazy adulterate behavior on my part. We recently
discussed the topic (at which time I informed her of my indiscretions);
we have decided to remain together for our children because we work
well together as parents and we are good friends. We have also decided
to “open” our relationship. We both want the same thing: a companion of
the opposite sex, a lover. My spouse has one. It is someone I am
acquainted with, and I know him to be a responsible person. I have been
looking, but no luck. I posted an ad online, but only managed to
attract a Russian scammer. Some direction would be appreciated.

I should mention that I am very
good-looking, in superb physical condition, charismatic, and highly
educated.

All Too Human

Don’t let modesty prevent you from listing
modesty among your many qualities, ATH, as the chicks really dig that
modesty stuff. Okay, so…

You’re looking for a companion of the
opposite sex, a lover, someone who understands you’re committed to
staying in your marriage for the sake of the kids, someone you know to
be trustworthy, someone who gets the whole open-relationship
concept…

How about the wife?

I know, I know: You two physically
disconnected after the births of your children; you engaged in some
sleazy adulterate behavior. But that’s all out in the open now and
you’ve decided to stay together because you’re good parents, partners,
and friends, and you’ve opened the relationship up to seek
friends-with-benefits, as the straight people call ’em, or fuck
buddies, as we gay people like to call ’em.

But why not have sex with each other,
anyway?

Not exclusively, of course. It’s important
that you leave things open, ATH, because openness may help your wife
realize that Person A
can be married to Person B, have sex with
Person C (and perhaps Persons D and E), and still be a loving spouse to
Person B. If she’s at all introspective, ATH, your wife will come to
this realization because that’s what she herself is doing. She’s
having sex with another man, while being a good and loving wife to you
and a good and loving mom to her kids.

Once she has this realization—that
love and commitment, and not sexual exclusivity, is the bond that you
two share—she may be able to forgive you your pre-open-marriage
adulterate behavior. And you may be able to restore your sexual
connection, even if you never become completely sexually exclusive
again.

In the meantime, ATH, there are many more
frustrated married men seeking sex online than there are frustrated
married women. But since your deal with the wife doesn’t exclude mutual
friends and acquaintances—look who she’s with—then there’s
no need for you to troll online. Be open and honest with friends about
your situation and your search. If you really are the superb,
charismatic, and highly educated piece of ass you claim to be, you’ll
soon be fielding offers from single female friends and/or secretly
frustrated married female friends.

For some reason, I have always
found Native Americans to be sexually attractive. But the semidark skin
and traditional breechcloth thing isn’t easy to find in porn or real
life. I was wondering if you had some pointers for someone with a bad
case of Native American Jungle Fever.

Native
Amateur

“The letter writer is correct,” says Sherman
Alexie, a Native American and a National Book Award–winning
author who was willing to demean himself by giving me a quote. “There
is a dearth of Native American porn.”

But Alexie tells me that once, while hunting
for antique board games, he typed “cowboy and Indian action figures”
into Google and found his way to a site that featured U.S. Cavalry
soldiers and loinclothed Indians smoking more than peace pipes. But
that’s all he’s got, pornwise. As for real life…

“There’s just no way your reader is going to
find an Indian willing to put on a loincloth for sexual purposes,” says
Alexie. “Unless that Indian is a seriously damaged, culturally
disconnected, politically unaware, and unsafe-sex-practicing slut.”

I part ways with Alexie here. Not because I
know more about Native Americans or Native American kinks. Goodness,
no. But over the years, I’ve heard from too many healthy, politically
aware, and sexually safe African Americans who dig role-playing slavery
scenarios—and too many good Jews who get off on
concentration-camp scenarios, and too many polite Canadians who adore
clueless-American-tourist scenarios (“Ooh, ask me who our ‘president’
is again!”)—to rule out the possibility that there are smart,
safe Native Americans genuinely interested in role-playing
cowboys-in-injuns out there somewhere. But they’re gonna be rare,
NA.

So what can you do to up your odds of
finding the action you seek?

“If the letter writer is an attractive blond
female,” says Alexie, “she can head to the next powwow in the region
where she lives, pick out a handsome fancydancer, and hit on him.
She’ll either get laid in the back of a casino-money-financed SUV or
she’ll get assaulted by a roving band of Indian women looking to
protect our most precious and dwindling resource: Native American
men.”

Dan, I need to know. What
bodily function is the opposite of an orgasm? Thanks a
lot.

Could Use More

“Though it’s not exactly a bodily function,
the back spasm is the opposite of an orgasm,” says Sherman Alexie, the
National Book Award–winning author.

“Why did he send that question to Alexie?”
some of my readers are no doubt asking themselves. That is a question
only a thoughtless bigot would ask and I shouldn’t dignify it with a
response. But let’s approach this as a teaching moment: I sent this
question to Alexie because he is the father of two and, we can
reasonably extrapolate, the haver of orgasms, which more than qualifies
him. Back to Alexie:

“While the orgasm is the pleasurable release
of stress, the back spasm is the painful reminder of collected and
unexpelled stress. I am currently typing one-handed because I am
shoving my fist deep into my lower back as some sort of half-assed
pressure-point massage. Of course, since the U.S. has become a
chair-and-computer culture, the number of people who are currently
massaging their wrecked backs is vastly larger than the number who are
massaging their sexual organs.”

And when you pause to consider that all of
the U.S. and most of Canada were basically built on top of a giant
Indian graveyard, I’d say we’re getting off easy with a little
lower-back pain.

mail@savagelove.net