Three months ago, my sociopathic girlfriend dumped me because I was going into the military. Afterward, I found out she was cheating on me with a married man. The one great thing about her was that she opened me up. At 22, I’d been in only a few other relationships. The sex with her was amazing, and she opened me up to different things (kinks, dirty talk, foreplay). I’m now having a hard time finding people willing to have casual-yet-kinky sex. I tried online, but the minute someone sees the “going into the army” portion of my profile, they assume I’m some sort of conservative prick. But I am liberal and open-minded and just looking to have some NSA sex before I leave for the army. Help!
Kinky Open-Minded Soldier
If the “going into the army” portion of your profile is preventing you from finding kinky NSA sex partners, KOMS, omit the “going into the army” portion of your profile. Your NSA sex partners may, after meeting you, inquire about your future plans. But you don’t need to disclose your hopes, dreams, and political leanings to potential NSA hookups, particularly if you feel that your plans are prejudicing kinksters against you.
But I’m not sure the army portion of your profile is the issue. There are a lot of conservative kinksters out there (I hear from them whenever I tear into a conservative politician in this space), and there are a lot of liberal/hippie/NPR-
listening kinksters out there who are attracted to military guys despite their politics (I hear from them whenever they want permission to cheat on their pansy-ass, hypersensitive hippie boyfriends with gruff ‘n’ buff military guys).
Have a kinky and/or adventurous friend take a look at the rest of your profile. It could be that some other part is giving off a creepy, unsafe, or inept vibe—do you mention that you hadn’t heard of foreplay until you were 22?—and it’s that part that’s turning off otherwise up-for-army-boy kinksters.
I’m a youngish (barely under 30) woman, currently involved in a great hetero relationship: My boyfriend is caring, unlike some men I’ve dated before, and I see him as a life partner. The trouble is, I find sex profoundly boring. I get vaguely “horny” maybe twice a year, and I don’t like sex.
Now I’m starting to wonder if being sexually uninterested disqualifies me from being with my BF. Judging from your past advice, it does. Is this something I should disclose so that he can leave me? I enjoy the cuddling and kissing, talking and outings that are part of coupledom, and it pains me to think I’m doomed to be alone, forever, just because shoving genitals together sits at #48 on my life priority list.
Please let me know what I should do. He’s talking about a future together.
Doesn’t Really Yearn
Either you’ve misread my past advice to the sexually disinterested, DRY, or you’ve only read mischaracterizations of my past advice on angry asexual blogs. So once more with feeling: Being asexual or minimally sexual does not disqualify you or anyone else from having a relationship or enjoying all of the swell, non-genitalia-related things that come with coupledom.
But you can’t—you shouldn’t—mislead your boyfriend about who you are.
He has a right to know how you feel about sex before he marries you, DRY. At the moment, he assumes—and it’s an entirely rational assumption—that you’re attracted to him not just in the cuddling, kissing, talking, and outing departments, but sexually as well. That you’re not all that interested in sex with him or anyone else is something he has a right to know before marriage and/or kids.
But even if your current BF leaves you, DRY, you’re not necessarily “doomed to be alone.” There are men out there who feel the same way about sex that you do. If your boyfriend dumps you, come out as very nearly asexual and go find yourself a very nearly asexual guy who wants to cuddle, kiss, talk, and out. And if you do ultimately wind up alone, DRY, no whining: There are lots of happily partnered asexuals out there and lots of unhappy sexuals who wound up alone despite their interest in sex.
My husband and I hired an electrician, whom I will call “Sparky.” We hired Sparky once before, and he was completely professional. One quirk: He would call me “Ma’am” instead of my name.
Halfway through Sparky’s four-hour re-wiring marathon in our kitchen, he handed me an envelope and asked me to fill out a survey regarding his service. I read the following: “My name is Mistress [REDACTED] and I control the male who just gave you this letter. He and I live the lifestyle of Female Supremacy. In our lifestyle of Matriarchy, women issue direction and men obey.”
The letter went on to ask for feedback about his performance, whether he was appropriately submissive, whether he addressed me as “Ma’am” or “Mistress,” and it ended: “To obtain the best possible service, order this male to give you his key. Keep the key until you are completely satisfied with his attitude or work. Use him as you wish. He must obey.”
I don’t know much about Dom/sub culture, Dan, but I can’t shake the feeling that by hiring this particular electrician, I was unwittingly included in his sex life, and that totally creeps me out. Am I wrong? Are we judgmental prudes if we never hire Sparky ever again?
Apparently Naive Housewife
You were dragged into Sparky’s sex life not when you hired him, ANH, but when he made the choice—perhaps he felt he was just following orders—to hand you that envelope. At that point, he involved you in his sex life, which was rude and unprofessional.
Most women who aren’t interested in sharing an erotic moment with Sparky—because they’re not into Dom/sub play or not into Sparky—would feel uncomfortable reading that letter, which suddenly sexualized a nonsexual exchange of goods and services. Some women would feel deeply violated. Making women feel uncomfortable or unsafe in their own homes by springing your erotic submission on them—and requiring them to participate without first obtaining their explicit consent—is sexual aggression masquerading as erotic submission.
And it’s not okay.
Professional Dom, sex bomb, and sex blogger Mistress Matisse (www.mistressmatisse.com) agrees with me: “That’s totally inappropriate,” Matisse said in an e-mail. “Those folks did not agree, either overtly or by any action, to be involved in topping that man. If his Mistress really exists, then they are both complicit in creepiness.”
If I were you, ANH, I wouldn’t hire Sparky again. Not because I wouldn’t mind having a submissive electrician around the house—that sounds like fun, actually—but because I wouldn’t want an electrician around the house, submissive or not, who displayed poor judgment and had no boundaries.
CONFIDENTIAL TO KIMBO: It sounds like you made the right choice when you DTMFA’d that dude.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
Also, props to 44 & 45 for speaking up to say that people with low sex drives can sometimes find their way to a higher sex drive through creative exploration.
Nagging someone to increase their sex drive won’t ever work, but bringing new ideas into the relationship might.
I’m assuming that most readers here would reject the old idea that homosexuality is an illness that needs to be cured because it diverges from so-called “normal” (hetero)sexuality. I can’t picture most people on here telling a gay man that he needs to have good sex with a woman or consult a therapist before he can legitimately decide he’s gay.
Saying that DRY should seek a “cure” for her asexuality is no different – it’s the sexual majority telling a sexual minority that they’re dysfunctional, even if they don’t realize it, and will be happier once they’re cured.
@42 – A good post. He could well be trying to swim in pools where, relative to the natives, he is a conservative p—-.
Now that I’m awake, I’m picking up faint hints of Newb Enthusiasm. That can be pretty offputting to some, but enticing to others. Maybe he should lead with it.
@52, yeah, and we should tell people who don’t hear well to just accept their deaf identity. No. Some deafness is treatable, and people should be encouraged to get treatment. Some lack of libido is similarly treatable, and people should be encouraged (not nagged or forced) to get treatment. After that effort, yes, then there is a time for acceptance, empathy, and disclosure to potential life partners.
ANH, this is not only unprofessional and creepy, it also seems like it borders on illegal. To keep it from happening to other women, contact his employer and give them a copy of the letter and register a complaint with the contractors licensing board in your state. Chances are, you aren’t the first person who has encountered this type of sexual aggression from him, and someone should put a stop to it.
EricaP: “Having orgasms is not obvious for many women. They need porn, vibrators, or really talented boyfriends. Sounds like she has had none of the above.”
If a woman doesn’t want to have sex, and she can articulate that, we should accept that explanation as the starting point. Don’t try and foist this onto the guy.
Similarly, if she leads with saying it is her mate’s fault, fine. But again, if she doesn’t, don’t put it on a guy to figure out her Rubik’s Cube issue in order for him to get his Good Lover merit badge from EricaP.
(Oh, and all those guys who smirkingly tell us they are proudly the sort of chap who loves to solve the Rubik’s Cube issue, also, please, stop; I can hear your gold medallions jangling and soft mood music filtered through your shitty bear skin rug. Gross.)
@54 Actually, that is an interesting example you bring up. As far as I know, many people in the deaf community would actually take a big issue with your assumption about treatment.
Dan I disagree with your advice to the 1st writer. Instead of having a friend vet his profile (chances are he doesn’t have any kinky friends or at least know that they’re kinky).
He should send you the profile to check out.
And pictures. Lots and lots of pictures.
@54 – Erica, you’re continuing to describe asexuality as a defect, which should be fixed if possible and accepted with empathy if not. Asexuality isn’t a defect; it’s simply another sexual variation, no different from homosexuality, bisexuality, paraphilia, etc. It can certainly prove inconvenient to the extent that it does not conform to other people’s expectations, but that’s their problem.
@56 Yes, EricaP merit badges are hard to earn. Not everyone wants one, and I’m fine with that.
@57 That’s the point of my example, actually. Just because some people in that community say someone with (poor hearing / poor libido) is great that way and shouldn’t talk to a doctor – that doesn’t mean that doctors who treat hearing loss / low libido should find another line of work.
@59 Change happens, if not to everyone. Read @44 and tell me you have no empathy for her development from high libido and back to high libido.
Let me put it this way. If someone tells me they don’t want to have kids, I support that immediately, no questions asked. Having kids doesn’t make one’s life better, in my experience.
If someone tells me they don’t like sex, I do ask them what they have tried before they came to that conclusion. Orgasms and/or good sex do make one’s life better, in my experience.
Raising the question doesn’t mean I shove it down their throat and make them choke on it. If people tell me they’re happy, that’s great. But if they’re complaining about the small dating pool of asexual people… then maybe they do want to change.
I’m so old I remember jazz appreciation classes. People aren’t all born liking jazz, and not everyone is born liking sex. Many people will continue happily to not like jazz, or not like sex. Great for them. But some people can learn to like jazz, or like sex. It’s worth offering people options in life, and not just saying everyone is the way they are, end of story.
@5 – exactly. I’m a war vet and I made the same choice when I enlisted.
@9 – He found out she was fucking around him after the break up. Enlisting may have been her excuse to break free, but the truth is we really just don’t know. Taken for what it is comment @5 has the most spot on response. But I can see where you are coming from too.
@25: Sure, that’s a possibility: maybe he is as low-sex-drive as she is. In that case, the conversation that they need to have will be short, sweet, and uneventful.
But they still need to have it — just in case he isn’t actually that guy.
I think the comparisons of asexuality with homosexuality and with deafness are both off the mark for different reasons:
— Living with a deaf partner doesn’t require a hearing partner to never speak or hear.
— If you are a homosexual, only an idiot would counsel you to date into the heterosexual dating pool with hopes of finding someone there to make it work long-term.
@59 asexuality “can certainly prove inconvenient to the extent that it does not conform to other people’s expectations, but that’s their problem”
Um, while I’m happy for people to be whoever they are, saying it’s other people’s problem when it turns out that their reasonable/common/standard expectation of a sex life won’t be met is nonsense. Asexuality and lower libdio (especially early in a relationship) isn’t always obvious and revealed – and it needs to be in order to avoid terrible pain for both of them downstream.
@59
What EricaP and others have been suggesting are entirely validated by this:
“The trouble is, I find sex profoundly boring.”
While asexuality is just as valid as any other libido level, that is not what the letter was about.
ANH
I don’t think anyone else has mentioned this but it’s possible that Sparky is the equivalent of a flasher. He may not have wanted anything beyond shocking you so that he could go home and masturbate to the memory of the expression on your face.
@59 et al: I don’t think that EricaP and others are arguing that asexuality is a defect; they’re arguing that the woman may or may not be asexual at all.
Sexual relations, whether masturbatory or with others, can be extremely fulfilling for most people. They’re also an intrinsic part of almost all romantic relationships. Many women (myself included) remember a time when we didn’t enjoy sex and perhaps didn’t want sex. for many of us, we figured out that sex can actually be awesome, and we were held back by hormonal problems/societal norms/medication side effects or other things.
suggesting that a person who doesn’t love sex might get checked out is NOT saying that it’s wrong to be asexual. It’s just saying that asexuality is rare, and in a society where many women are taught that sexuality is disgusting and wrong, a woman who is not comfortable with sex might simply need to open up to find out that she’s not actually asexual at all.
Certainly I am happier now that I embrace my sexuality, but if she is adverse to the idea, or tries to figure out if there’s something else going on and finds that there isn’t, that is completely her choice, and no one on here is going to fault her for it.
@11:
Most women would (and to be honest, have) run away from *me* for being the enormous pervert I am, and for needing to get tied up and pegged on a semi-regular basis.
But the ones that *stay*… well, those are the interesting ones.
Dating is a process of elimination. I don’t date *most women*. I date a select few that I think are worth dating in the first place. Just as I am honest with those that I date in an effort to find people I’m actually compatible with, DRY should be honest with those that she dates in an effort to find compatibility. Noone should lie about who they are just because the majority of people won’t accept them. That’s true of everyone, gay, straight, kinky, vanilla, or asexual. It’s just not a recipe for a good relationship.
I am picturing dear DRY’s oddly unpopular personal ad. “I am kind of asexual and dislike banging genitals together. Also, I am going into the Army.”
jill
http://inbedwithmarriedwomen.blogspot.co…
“Making women feel uncomfortable or unsafe in their own homes by springing your erotic submission on them—and requiring them to participate without first obtaining their explicit consent—is sexual aggression masquerading as erotic submission.”
Dan, bravo and thank you.
@59: An expectation of near or complete lack of sex in a relationship is one modality, and people have a right to that if they want it. Nobody should be coerced into sex that they don’t want. However, by the same token, an expectation of frequent, enthusiastic sex is an equally valid modality.
When both of those modalities are present in the same relationship, the word to describe that isn’t “inconvenient.” The correct word is “incompatible.”
Personally, I would have an easier time believing in the idea of asexuality (i.e. that a perfectly emotionally and physically healthy person can have zero sex drive) if I ever heard an “asexual” talking about sex in a completely neutral way.
But every time an “asexual” writes in, they describe sex in a negative way and usually mock people who enjoy it (I also saw a news segment about a social club for asexuals…same thing, everyone in the group was rolling their eyes at us dumb sexual people and how we sure to seem to like doing that stupid pointless sex thing).
Saying “I don’t like sex” and describing the act as “shoving genitals together” doesn’t sound to me like the words of someone who’s just not into it: it sounds like fear and anger.
So, yeah, I supect that a lot of self-identified asexuals are actually just really really repressed, or pre-orgasmic, or victims of abuse, or something. I’m with Erica P. and the others who have suggested that DRY try to explore her feelings on the subject a little more instead of jumping to conclusions.
Re 73, I note that Savage has, in the past, engaged in virtual eye-rolling and “icky poo” squeamishness in discussing women’s sex organs.
Fear? Anger? Doubt it. But much like me and thinking about a guy’s junk, some parts of human sexuality make him go, “ick, no way”. I assume asexuals are the same way.
I roll my eyes and make faces at the idea of a guy’s junk. Savage does when thinking about women. Asexuals feel that way about the whole topic. No sweat. Everyone has their own level in interest in differnt things. You don’t need to call it fear and anger if you get grossed by some things involving sex and humans. It is instead called sexual orientation and preferences.
#74, let’s try a metaphor here. I’m not into eating steak…I’ve had it, it was fine, but I don’t care if I ever have it again in my lifetime. But I don’t dwell on my lacklustre steak experiences; I don’t make commments about how OMG the whole concept of steak is so alien to me, I mean I don’t really understand why someone would want to chew on a big hunk of a cow’s muscle tissue but whatever, if the steak-eaters like it then they can just go ahead for all I care so NYAH NYAH NYAH. And if I did run around talking like that all the time…wouldn’t you assume I must have some weird issues with steak and/or the people who eat it?
Actually, okay, I’m revising my opinion from my previous post: trash-talking steak-lovers or sex-lovers isn’t necessarily a sign that someone has issues with sex or steak; it could also mean that the person feels threatened by how much everyone else seems to like it. I would assume that Dan made his disparaging comments about female genitals because, after having been gaybashed for a good chunk of his life, he felt a bit defensive and was lashing out.
Now, personally, my sex drive is way too high for me to ever consider dating an asexual. But even if asexuality was something I was willing to deal with in a relationship, y’know what isn’t? A tendency for my partner to feel insecure and lash out at me in an attempt to make me feel bad about who I am. So the whole I-just-don’t-like-that-boring-business-of-shoving-our-genitals-together vibe of DRY rankles the everloving shit out of me.
“Overgeneralizing here, but women want to have sex with men whom they feel connected to. Men begin to feel connected to women that they have regular sex with. Sick and sad, but true. “
I don’t see anything sick about that. Unfortunate that biology (and society) dealt us these not-entirely-compatible hands, but sick?
As a Soldier about to leave the Army… Why the fuck are you joining the Army? I know it’s too late, but I mean seriously… it sucks. If you’re any sort of sane, or have the choice not to join, DO NOT FUCKING JOIN! I have spent the last 11 months in Afghanistan, fighting a losing war. I’ve given 6 years to the Army. Sure I have a university education and an officer’s commission out of it, but it’s not fucking worth it man.
KOMS, the army will chew you up and spit you out, it is an unforgiving organization. It will lie, steal and cheat to get what it wants. There is no honor in it, there is no honor in war, there is only terror, destruction and inhumanity. Guard your mind, for you will find all that was once true to be a lie, all that is good, to wither and die.
I’m horrified by how hard people are coming down on Sparky.
I think he went too far. I don’t think the letter was appropriate–it was too strong. But there might be more to the story. Maybe he thought he detected some flirtation (maybe there was, or maybe Sparky just sucks at interpreting these things). Sure, trying to involve a client in your sex life is questionable if you’re counting on a continuing business relationship. Why is that, exactly?
Essentially, he asked a question to probe interest, and the answer was no. Wouldn’t it be lovely if the world thought it was okay to ask for what you want? Words without the threat of physical violence should not MAKE adults feel a certain way; adults should CHOOSE how to feel, or should feel and then use that in order to answer. “Feeling creeped out” by a question is for children and Americans.
ANH did the right thing: she wondered whether this was appropriate. I think ANH is far more mature here than Dan–she maturely considered what her reaction should be. Dan, in contrast, talked about how violated some people would feel. Dear Dan: some people feel violated by women who assert opinions or who show calf or navel or neck. Many American women feel violated if a man asks “Would you like to have sex with me?”–especially if they’re married, since most American women like to pretend that humans are monogamous. Dan makes men feel violated all the time by the mere fact that he’s gay. Should these people feel violated? How can you answer that?
ANH was not “dragged into” Sparky’s sex life. She was invited. Well, mostly. There was perhaps a small amount of dragging, and I think that Sparky did go too far. But what if the same conversation had been verbal? What if Sparky had said “Here’s this thing I’m interested in. Are you?” What if he’d led up to it gradually and backed off earlier? This is a continuum, and I think the non-invasiveness of handing someone a letter has been lost on Dan and most of this audience.
Life’s far too short not to ask people whether they’d be interested in sharing your interests, as long as it’s okay for the answer to be “no”. The alternative is a litigious society where just asking any question (that could be in any way related to sexuality, porn, money, drugs, interests that Republicans don’t like, etc?) can get you sued, people live in fear of “invading” each other by just attempting to communicate, and everybody is desperately lonely.
I think Sparky was out of line. But only a little.
39 & 44 mentioned this, but it bears repeating: Is DRY on hormonal birth control? I felt the same way she does after being on the Pill/ring/shot for six years. I was young and newly-wed and had no interest in sex, and I thought there was something seriously amiss. I was complaining to a girlfriend who said she had the same issue until she got off the Pill and got a copper IUD. I’ve had my IUD for two months and my libido has improved tremendously. Planned Parenthood can help you too if the money is an issue.
@79: Nice trolling. U go to troll school?
@73
I get what you mean, but maybe SOMETIMES the fear and anger is a defense in response to all the grief she gets about it. To use the steak analogy, I don’t like steak, but people aren’t constantly trying to convince me that if it was just cooked right I would LOVE it and I should try to correct my very pathological dislike of steak.
And for the record I am WAY on the other end of the sexual spectrum. I would literally do nothing but fuck eat and sleep if that were an option to me, and that’s basically my idea of heaven. So even “normal” women who are sometimes “not in the mood” strike me as totally batty.
I just think that if she said “I don’t like sex” and expected us to say “Oh, neato, I don’t like curly fries. To each their own.” Then she might not feel the need to state it so vehemently.
@81 I don’t think 79 is trolling. Is it ever appropriate to ask out someone at work, if you do it politely and take no for an answer? Maybe yes, maybe no, depending on who has authority over the other, maybe depending on gender… but maybe sometimes it’s okay.
If they had known each other (professionally) for months, and he asked her out for coffee, and accepted her “no” politely… That would be okay, in my view.
In this case, Sparky was out of line, and should be reported to his licensing board. But a contractor thinking sexual thoughts about his employer isn’t automatically harassment.
@82, I agree that her defensiveness is appropriate for our culture. But there’s a reason people react with concern when a woman says she doesn’t like sex. It’s more like refusing language than it is like refusing curly fries.
Sex maybe falls somewhere between language and music, in terms of its importance in most people’s lives and in bringing people together with the kind of close connection most humans crave.
Interesting post! Who want to be the “army”?
trend internet security
@81: I agree with 79: I think you’re all making a bigger deal of this than it is.
A long time ago a gay man decided he wanted to have sex with me. (I’m straight and single.) But, for whatever reason, he couldn’t say “Hi, I’m gay, I think you’re hot, want to get it on?” No. He had to pretend to have a common interest with me, so that he could ask for an invitation to my apartment. Once he’d got me alone and in private, instead of, you know, ASKING if I was interested, he proceeded to try to embrace me and “kiss” me on the face. (He was trying for my lips but I wasn’t cooperating.) Then, with me pushing him away and the expression on my face, he hung his head and left my apartment. Now I think that that’s FAR more intrusive and “involving [me] in his sex life” than handing me an envelope inviting me to do X to him could ever have been. It was certainly “making [me] feel uncomfortable in my own home” and the only reason it wasn’t “creepy” was because it had gone well past the “creepy” stage. But once he’d left I didn’t worry about it, or call the police or anything, because it just wasn’t that big a deal – not anywhere near that big a deal.
Then again, marching him to the door with his head hung low was therapeutic – it’s hard to feel creeped out by a spineless wimp. It’s a pity ANH couldn’t do that to “Sparky”. But of course she had a half-completed four hour wiring job to worry about: total pain to leave that half-done until she could hire another electrician.
And this isn’t that big of a deal. Yes, “Sparky” shouldn’t have done it, and ANH is certainly not in any way “a judgmental prude” to never hire him again – I certainly wouldn’t – and ANH should do what she needs to do to make herself feel more comfortable about it: talk to him, get an apology from him, and let him know he’s never getting hired again by them and why, if that makes ANH feel better, talk to his “mistress,” if she exists, and get an apology from her, if that makes ANH feel better. Or don’t have anything to do with them again, if not having anything to do with them is what makes ANH feel better.
But in the overall scheme of things, this falls well into the “not that big of a deal” category. There’s enough truly bad stuff will happen to you in life without sweating the small stuff. And making this into something bigger than it is only gives the idiot more power over you.
I think that the reason I came out of my incident, which in physical terms was worse than hers, feeling OK, while she feels creeped out, is that I came out of it feeling that I was in control – life had thrown a hardball at me and I’d hit it out of the park, which feels empowering not traumatic – while she doesn’t feel in control, at all: she’s asking Dan if she’s allowed to not allow him back in her house. I’d recommend she do stuff to get back her sense of control, rather than that she dwell on the incident.
Sex advice haiku:
KOMS – Your profile needs work/Kinky sex is hard to find/War makes it harder
DRY – Sex is not all that/Except when it is to some/Best to find out now
ANH – The bill torn to bits/The letter saved guards the spring/Against future bills
Army Boy should try making a few different profiles, some saying the army part, some not, all a little different, with slightly different photos, and see which ones get the most hits.
Hey Mistress [REDACTED], do you realize that you are destroying your slave’s livelihood? He’s not your husband, by any chance? With any luck the two of you will be out of your cozy dungeon and living under an underpass within the year, once word gets out and he can’t get any regular work in his chosen trade. Shining example of Female Supremacy you got going there, running the family business into the ground. Heckuva job.
Sparky, in case you are reading: Your Supreme Queen is too stupid to be in charge of you.
(assuming she isn’t fictional)
Wow wow now hold up a minute Dan. Don’t just write DRY off as an asexual. Is she taking any prescription drugs? Is she on birth control? These things have profound sexual side-effects, especially when it comes to libido and orgasm function.
DRY: Have a talk with your doctor and see what you guys can work out before you write sex off entirely. If it turns out there’s no medical component messing stuff up you are statistically speaking way more likely to be in a situation where your body is telling you that this relationship is over rather than you being asexual.
Am I the only one who thought ANH was using “electrician” as a euphemism for “professional third”, and the problem had to do with being addressed as Ma’am by hired help? It took me until the end of the letter to understand that “Sparky” actually was just an electrician.
Up to that point, I thought the “four-hour re-wiring marathon in the kitchen” referred to a vigorous 3-way, and admired her wit!
I believe Sparky crossed the line, but by gosh if it was me in her shoes I would have used the letter to make him clean the shower before he left… just saying
Yes, the Sparky crossed the line and should not be used again. But if I was in her shoes I would have used the letter to make him clean my shower before making him leave… just saying
Old Crow:
It was a man, in her home when she is home alone. Apparently the existence of rape isn’t something factored into your equation.
Count me among the folks who think that his behaviour was criminal, and that’s where I disagree with @79. If he approached her properly, later, and followed the kink rules, that’s fine. But to basically say, “you’re in my sex life whether you want it or not” in her own goddamned home and without any warning or permission is the emotional equivalent of suddenly masturbating in front of her.
How obvious does this have to be and how oblivious do you have to be? We get to choose who we bring into our home for sexual matters. Third parties don’t get to arbitrarily choose for us. They have no right what-so-ever to do so, and, frankly, I think that both the electrician and the mistress (if she exists) both at the very minimum should have the shit scared out of them by an evening in an interrogation room with the sexual assault detectives.
Am I the only one who gets the vibe that DRY’s bf, on finding out that about her lack of interest, will say “thank god, me too!” ? I hope so, for both their sakes’. She seems every so much nicer than a lot of the low-libido people that I’ve met who are all too eager to make other people carry their emotional cans for them.
Apparently Naive Housewife:
Why would you write to Dan Savage for advice on whether or not to hire “Sparky” again? Can’t you make a simple decision and act on it? What age are you…10? What a waste of space your question is!
I spent 6 years in the Navy and it was never a strong selling point for the ladies. And I have no problem with his girlfriend dumping him over joining up. What did he expect? Until women decide that sleeping with military guys and conservative assholes (and I know not all military personnel are conservs) we will see no improvement. But women seem to think that they can overlook the shitty parts of their asshole BFs and husbands and focus on the good parts. Look at the divorce rates and family violence rates in the military… it just doesn’t work ladies. Dumping the jarhead/squid/ground-pounder/airdale is the sane thing to do… most of the time.
ANH’s electrician can come rewire my house anytime, and I am smarter and stricter than his current Mistress. I would give him a survey that was truly just a survey (and he’d better get all Excellents, or else), and instruct him to hand his key to ANH without comment, except to politely request she hold onto it for him while he worked. Knowing what the survey and the key are for should be just between the two of us.
I also need extensive plumbing done, and my fence is falling down on one side. Excuse me while I check the interwebs for slaves.
I’m surprised by the comments defending or minimizing what Sparky did. It makes me wonder about the age of the commenters. Employers do report a shocking lack of awareness of what constitutes professional behavior among young people.
For future reference hitting on someone with whom you have a professional relationship is an extremely delicate thing to undertake. It can be done –I married an employee. But realize that you are ill-advised to try it. You have to be extremely careful and slow in your approach and you absolutely must back off immediately at the first sign that your advance is unwelcome.
It’s also the height of ignorance to fail to recognize how sexually prudish Americans are and how threatened they are by even very tame sexuality. How can you even think that a kinky request like Sparky’s is not totally out of line in this context? Depending on the recipient, revealing TMI is a form of sexual assault even if it isn’t illegal.
I’ve met a woman who once enjoyed having her nipples nailed to a board. Is that the kind of story I should relate to a woman (about whom I have no information sexually) when I first approach her?
I’m with @79, honestly. And I *don’t* think that Mistress PoorJudgment is fake. I’ve been around enough posturing Dom(me)s overflowing with machismo to know that people like this DEFINITELY exist.
It was a stupid act, plain and simple. The line between customer and vendor is there for a reason.
If I were ANH I’d write the words that @90 commented down, put them in the envelope and “order” him to give them to his idiot Mistress.
I met a guy and started dating him, and we were well along in the relationship before he finally explained why he was gone one weekend a month. He had to tell me because his two weeks were coming up, otherwise he probably would have hidden it longer.
For the five years we were married, those weekends and two weeks a year were my favorite times. He was a controlling, manipulative, lying bastard and I associate his hiding his service because he thought I wouldn’t approve with the lying, manipulative behavior.
Sure, don’t make it part of the introduction (“Hi, I’m KOMS and I’m shipping out soon!”) but don’t hide it for too long.