I am a bi woman happily married to a straight man, and we both “participate” in hot sexy times with other women during threesomes. It’s hard to find hot 30ish bi girls where we live, but the encounters we’ve had were for the most part excellent. Everything was great until three weeks ago, when we had a miscarriage. We’d been trying for almost two years, so the recovery is not just physical but emotional for both of us.
We were only recently given the go-ahead to have sex again. We have a well-rounded sex life—kink, BDSM, toys—and both of us have said that, just for right now, we’re not looking for anything more than just us.
I went to the computer this morning to find that my husband had left his e-mail open. His inbox was filled with replies to recent queries sent to girls looking for couples to hook up with. His e-mails to these girls ask what gets them hot and when/where we can all hook up, and they state that his wife is really excited about f-ing her. I’m probably overreacting due to all the extra hormones, but he’s lying to them, and I’m not sure what he’s doing to me.
Confused & Hormonal
I’m so sorry for your loss, C&H. A miscarriage when you’re trying to conceive is an utterly heartbreaking experience. My heart goes out to you—both of you.
Two things in your letter leaped out at me: “It’s hard to find hot 30ish bi girls where we live” and “Both of us have said that, just for right now, we’re not looking for anything more than just us.” And one thing that isn’t in your letter leaped out at me: You found no evidence that your husband was planning to meet up with any of these girls alone. He isn’t cheating and wasn’t planning to. He was making very tentative, vague plans for the three of you to get together at some point in the future. And that isn’t gonna happen—that can’t happen—until you’re ready, right?
So here’s what your husband is guilty of: He is looking forward—too soon and too eagerly—to the time when you’re ready to start having threesomes again. And it looks like he was trying to dig up one of those “hard to find” hot 30ish bi girls so that when you were ready for “more than just us,” a hot 30ish bi girl would be all lined up.
Was that a shitty thing for him to do? Perhaps. But again, C&H, all you discovered was evidence that your husband was making plans for sexy times at some indefinite point in the future. And are you sure he understands that just looking is out-of-bounds? Perhaps when you said, “We’re not looking for anyone else right now,” he heard, “We’re not sleeping with anyone else right now.”
As upsetting as it was to find those e-mails, I think your husband deserves some credit for being… considerate. Your miscarriage was no doubt upsetting for him, too, C&H, but it didn’t impact his sexual interests or needs the way it impacted yours. But he didn’t push the issue. He didn’t put any pressure on you—he didn’t even bring the subject up. All he did was put some feelers out and do a little online flirting and planning. Half the fun is to plan the plan, as Mrs. Lovett once said, so he probably enjoyed those e-mail exchanges. But he didn’t tell you about them because there was no way to talk about them without making you feel pressured.
So let’s pretend that you never ran across those e-mails, C&H. Let’s imagine that six months or a year from now, you’re starting to feel the urge to have some sexy times with a hot 30ish bi girl. And you go to your husband, who has been patient and understanding, and you say, “I think I’m ready to have a threesome again.” And your loving, kinky, considerate husband replies, “Hey, that’s great. I’ve been chatting with a few hot 30ish bi girls online I thought you might like. You wanna see their pictures?”
You probably wouldn’t have said, “YOU ASSHOLE! You weren’t even supposed to be LOOKING until I said so!” I’m thinking it’s much more likely that you would’ve said something like “My husband is the best.”
I’m about to move in with my boyfriend of four years. He’s still very attracted to me, but my attraction to him has faded. I think the anxiety of finally moving in together caused something to snap. I went out for innocent drinks with a colleague and ended up back at his place. I love my boyfriend, but I’m still giddy from the hot sex with my colleague. I’m confused! Especially because I don’t feel guilty—I feel great! I have no plans to tell the BF, a man I love very much and don’t want to hurt. What do I do now?
Girl Hot Tin Roof
Unless you’re planning to put your boyfriend painlessly to sleep in the very near future, GHTR, there’s no way to avoid hurting him. You’re not really in love with him, you’re not attracted to him, and the longer you drag this relationship out, GHTR, the greater the hurt will be once you finally screw up the courage to dump him, or more likely, once he discovers the truth on his own. I would tell you to DTMFA, but you’re the MF in this scenario, not him. End it.
THE CHOICER CHALLENGE: Last week, the leader of British Columbia’s Conservative Party, John Cummins, told a radio interviewer that gay people shouldn’t be covered by the BC Human Rights Act because being gay is “a conscious choice.”
Like truthers (9/11 was an inside job!), birthers (Barack Obama was born in Kenya!), and deathers (Osama bin Laden is alive and well and living in West Hollywood!), choicers would appear to be just another group of deranged conspiracy theorists who can’t be dissuaded by science or evidence or facts. And John Cummins isn’t the only choicer out there. We have lots of choicers right here in the United States (Tony Perkins, Rick Santorum, “Stephen Colbert,” et al.).
But what if the choicers are right? What if being gay is something people consciously choose? Gee, if only there were a way for choicers to prove that they’re right and everyone else is wrong… actually, there is a way for choicers to prove that they’re right!
I hereby publicly invite—I publicly challenge—John Cummins to prove that being gay is a choice by choosing it himself.
Suck my dick, John.
I’m completely serious about this, John. You’re not my type—you’re about as far from my type as a human being without a vagina gets—but I have just as much interest as you do in seeing this gay-is-a-choice argument resolved once and for all. You name the time and the place, John, and I’ll show up with my dick and a camera crew. Then you can show the world how it’s done. You can demonstrate how this “conscious choice” is made. You can flip the switch, John, make the choice, then sink to your bony old knees and suck my dick. And after you’ve swallowed my load, John, we’ll upload the video to the internet and you’ll be a hero to other choicers everywhere.
It’s time to put your mouth where your mouth is, John. If being gay is a choice, choose it. Show us how it’s done.
Suck my dick.
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.
This article has been updated since its original publication.
I love you, Dan Savage!
You ever notice how people “accidentally” end up having sex mostly when ALCOHOL is involved? It just seems like if your intentions are “innocent” you might actually just have coffee or food. Not an earth-shattering idea, I realize, but how many coffee dates do you know ended up with people inadvertently having sex?
I don’t even understand the premise of “if it’s a choice, it can’t be a right” thing. Religion is a choice, but no one goes around saying that since you chose it, people are free to discriminate against you.
Instead of falling into the trap of arguing whether or not it’s a choice, gay rights activists should make it clear that, whatever it is, it’s a right.
I don’t have a Ph.D in biology, but I would like to point out that PLENTY OF HOMOSEXUALS reproduce and many of those WANT to. Many who don’t do participate in child rearing. So, it seems to me that it doesn’t hold water to say that homosexuality is some kind of population-reducer.
#51 damn right natural selection is random. However with in the random context gay relationships can prove to beneficial to the hunter gather societies we evolved from. I recommend Dan’s often recommend book Sex At Dawn.
Strong agreement with #39, #89, and everyone who followed: the trouble with the “it’s not a choice/we were born this way” argument is that it suggests that there would be something wrong with choosing to be gay. I do believe orientation is innate– whether genetic or due to the hormonal state of the womb or whatever– but denying that the actions can be chosen or not is just silly.
Dan’s point seems to be that the “choicers” (if straight) can’t choose to want to be gay or not, and it’s a fair point. But it’s pretty simple for a choicer to argue that “we all have different temptations to sin– that doesn’t make gambling or lying less of a sin just because some people want one more than the other, or vice-versa.”
We like the “this isn’t a choice because no-one would choose” it argument because it gets us sympathy. But it’s a much weaker argument than “there’s nothing wrong with this.” I very much like #39 et al’s point that other choices are protected (including being of a different religion, which fundamentalists would consider just as sinful)– why not this one?
perverse cowgirl, I have no problems with attached people hanging out with ex-lovers, even with alcohol involved. I DO have a problem with the person to whom one is attached being called tightly wound or insecure due to failure to appreciate this activity. There are many good reasons why one might not want one’s spouse having drinks with a former lover, that could range from the spouse’s reluctance to include you, or a former infidelity, and so on. I believe married people owe each other full disclosure about things like this, or at least need some kind of blanket permission to proceed, which is true even if they are nonmonogamous.
Elsalover, I’m not sure that preferring incest to infidelity is, as you apparently assume, a sign of excessive uptightness. Indeed, it seems the other way around to me. Infidelity implies a betrayal that hurts people; incest might involve consenting adults making each other happy despite breaking a taboo against, say, first cousins being together. I’d be much less likely to judge the latter, and more likely not to want the former, but that doesn’t exactly make me uptight.
Ms Erica – Perhaps the variable that should be removed from the equation might be the alcohol? But then I’m a lifelong teetotaler and accordingly recuse myself.
@161 – yes, as 155 says, people don’t shed their morals over coffee. But the topic at hand is former lovers going out for drinks without their current partners, so I’m afraid if we subtract alcohol from both sides, we can’t say much at all.
I didn’t read all the comments, but Dan put “Stephen Colbert” in quotes because he was talking about the CHARACTER he plays on TV. Get a clue people.
Get a clue folks. Dan put “Stephen Colbert” in quotes because his CHARACTER proclaims that being gay is a choice. The man himself obviously doesn’t believe that.
Sometimes Dan, you’re such a fucking man. She might not even be done bleeding yet from this miscarriage and he’s already out thinking about fucking other chicks. That’s why she’s pissed. All that shit should be on hold. He’s thinking about strange pussy while she’s heartbroken over losing his baby. Goddamn.
I’m in a similar type of relationship and it’s taken us seven years for him to GET IT that SOMETIMES it’s nto even appropriate to think about fucking. During my grandfather’s funeral, while I’m breastfeeding (as in during the actual sucking not during that time period in general) while I am taking a dump, these are times to not think about his penis.
I have found men are really dumb about this in general and need extremely clear instructions. And I get it’s upsetting but once I stopped expecting him to be a fucking girl about it and realized that for men there’s no such thing as a bad time for fucking, we were able to work through it.
While I take the point that EXs are EX for a reason – and I do personally interact every now and again with my ex-wife – I also see big red flags in things like this:
had he suggested she join us, i would have been all for it. but then we couldn’t have reminisced about all that hawt sex we had as horny college students back in the ’70s and laugh a lot.
One of the most useful little rules I ran across for knowing what is and is not appropriate to say to someone who might potentially be a sex/romantic partner is this: would you be comfortable saying the same thing in front of your current primary partner? This rule was given in the context of workplace sexual harassment training (mandatory for all supervisors), but it strikes me as useful for everyone in all contexts and types of relationships (including open relationships).
Whether or not you or the partnered person are interested in rekindling anything, the need to have a different conversation is telling. I had to re-learn this recently when I was using a friend (not even an ex) as a sounding board and discussing things (via email) with her I would not discuss in front of my partner.
@122: There have been some studies that showed homosexual behaviors in rats increasing when the rat community was overpopulated and overcrowded. I don’t think it is unreasonable to think that under some conditions, the genetic bases for homosexuality might be favored. We have seen before that individuals will sacrifice their ability to reproduce in order to support their kin’s reproduction, and I believe that if this hypothesis can be supported, the mechanism might be similar.
We must also commend politicians for taking solid steps to support equality such as Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton:
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/…
In Canada Cummins won’t get votes on this social policy belief because largely we only have approximately 10% of an evangelical following country wide. The issue here is has been debated and there’s more important things like jobs, economy, healthcare and education to talk about.
A fun history fact: we (Canadians) had our Obama in the 70’s and early 80’s – with Pierre Elliott Trudeau with his most famous line that, ‘Government has no place in the bedrooms of Canadians.’ And it has stuck.
Of course we’re talking about consenting adults only for those who will split hairs.
We must also commend politicians for taking solid steps to support equality such as Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton:
http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/…
In Canada Cummins won’t get votes on this social policy belief because largely we only have approximately 10% of an evangelical following country wide. The issue here is has been debated and there’s more important things like jobs, economy, healthcare and education to talk about.
A fun history fact: we (Canadians) had our Obama in the 70’s and early 80’s – with Pierre Elliott Trudeau with his most famous line that, ‘Government has no place in the bedrooms of Canadians.’ And it has stuck.
Of course we’re talking about consenting adults only for those who will split hairs.
Dan, I agree with you that these choicers are nut jobs. And Jim Cummins is a particularly annoying example of the lot, with his “This is what studies have said, but I’m not a scientist so don’t question me when I state my personal private views” as a public figure at a Salvation Army rally, which is a public, if homophobic event. But, and this is the point, even if this guy isn’t your type — have you seen Jim Cummins? He looks kind of like the tortoise in that youtube video — the one humping the Croc shoe, but he isn’t that cute…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R3BYCT5o…
this is the video.
(I think I need to credit John Waters’ book Role Models), but should it really matter whether homosexuality is a choice or not? Why would it being a choice justify unequal treatment under the law or discrimination?
To anybody making the “it’s a choice” argument, here’s my response.
Thank you for making your position clear. You are advocating that individuals put aside what is in their hearts regarding whom to love, and instead “choose” some other person who is (apparently, to you at least) more expedient to society in general. In other words, you expect homosexuals to “choose” to renounce the person they truly love, and instead engage in marriage of convenience.
Moreover, once they choose to do this, you won’t give their personal motivations a second thought, regardless of whether they choose to marry literally a stranger off the street, solely for the insurance benefits (which is their right under current law), so long as that person is of the opposite sex.
As such, you have just lost the privilege of uttering the phrase “sanctity of marriage.”
@165: I don’t think it’s fair to say that a man should be ordered not even to think about fucking. He’s used to getting 3somes, and since that’s not on the table atm, he’s fulfilling his fantasy by chatting up potential 3some partners for some undetermined time in the future. Maybe he should have found another way to release tension, but he’s not forcing HER to think about sex (she stumbled upon his email), and no one is allowed to force him NOT to think about sex.
I love you, Dan Savage.
I love Dan Savage.
Best logic ever.
In a purported monogamous relationship I believe it matters if the ex-lover predates the current relationship or if they were a partner in an affair during the relationship. If the latter I can conceive of no circumstances under it would be appropriate for the former CPOS to have any contact with the ex. Although if a child was conceived as a result of the affair then contact with the ex may be inevitable and until the death of the ex, the child, or the victim.
Dan-
#100 is quite right. This’ll go viral if you link to the money quote.
Consider the opposite argument. I’ll gladly concede that HETEROsexuality is NOT a choice, rather than accept a challenge to eat pussy.
I’ve been reading this “never go out for drinks with exes if you’re in a monogamous relationship” and feeling very confused. Then it just hit me…my exes and I aren’t huge, out-of-control drinkers. If I’m going out for drinks with an ex, we’re having one pint, maybe two. No one’s inhibitions are inappropriately lowered. Everyone’s safely able to make their way home alone. No more risk than meeting them at a museum or at church.
I only let myself get to the point of “feeling it” with people that are completely safe.
http://theoatmeal.com/comics/literally go to the bottom 🙂
@C&H: I’m sorry about your miscarriage! That’s painfully hard to plan for and then lose a child. You’re in my thoughts and prayers.
@165 sometimes people (and I stress people) want sex quite a lot when they’re grieving. My wife did after our miscarriage, probably earlier than I wanted. They also have very raw emotions and make mistakes. Just like people.
By the way, thinking about sex is not a choice – for me – it may be for you – I may possibly not do so when I’m dead. It’s “inappropriate” of you to tell me it’s “inappropriate”.
Of course I’m a “really dumb” man so feel free to diss me and report me to the thought police. You could do with working on the “really clear instructions” for the men who need it though, you sound inarticulate. After all it took 7 years, you say, for your views to be heard with just one dumb man, it’ll take an awful long time to change a few billion. Perhaps understanding a bit more, and cutting out polarising generalisations before you mouth off, would be useful in getting your point – if you have one – across.
Dan – here’s why the “choice” argument makes me nuts. What if being gay was a choice? Aren’t we *allowed* to make choices? In fact, I thought these choices were one of our most basic human rights.
(And while I never chose to be gay, I did choose not to be a fucking closet case who got married and got dick on the side, and that’s a choice I’m pretty proud of.)
Can you please tell me the definition of “gay”? I mean, for a guy to suck another guy’s dick is a gay “act”, but does it make him “gay”? I have consciously made the choice to suck another guy’s dick, in the course of sexual self-discovery (just a couple times – honest), but I have determined that at the end of the day, I am not attracted to men. I’ve never met a man that I was drawn to sexually, but I am sexually drawn to all kinds of women. I wouldn’t even call that being bi. I’m straight, but I’ve performed “gay” acts.
Anyhow, I guess that what I’m saying is that while your challenge to Cummins is witty and humorous, the reality is that what he is inferring is that “gay” men can choose to not “act” gay. He believes that it doesn’t matter what you think or feel, what matters is what you do, and people can control (choose) 100% of what they do. He’s believes that all people should be capable of controlling all of their instincts, and not do bad things (like interacting sexually with someone of their own gender).
So here is the bottom line: He thinks that it is morally wrong for people of the same gender to interact sexually, and you don’t. He thinks that that people can control 100% of their actions, and you don’t. He is living in a idealistic fantasy world, and you aren’t.
On C&H it seams clear from the letter that C&H did these things together as a couple and that they both liked. There are a number of unknowns.
For example who would arrange the meetings? C&H or her Husband? What was their protocol on this? Did they even have one? Does the Husband even know that his wife is not into this right now? Etc.
It could be something as simple as the Husband wants things to return to normal and part of things being normal is doing things they both liked to do. MFF threesomes it is very clear was something they were both into.
So I think Dan has this one right. Give the husband the benefit of the doubt.
Only suggestion I would have is that the wife should mention in some way that she is no into MFF thing at the moment. Put it as the idea occured to her but after she thought it over she decided she wasn’t into it right then.
Publicly inviting another man to suck your d*ck is f*g-baiting, plain and simple. What’s more, performing a sexual act cannot determine sexual orientation. Once again, Dan Savage demonstrates why he will never be a legitimate Gay Rights movement spokesman or leader, no matter how many sycophants he has.
on the other hand, choice or not shouldn’t matter expression should be a human right, etc. We may be pre-loading the next civil right ‘discussion’ as a question of choice vs inherent human nature. And people who choose something distasteful to the majority??? well, furries or something will be denied their lifestyles for sake of offending the pure nature of our virgin squirrel populations.
brokephilosopher, dameedna, I’m not sure you correctly read what wendykh (165) was saying. She wasn’t saying that her partner isn’t allowed to think about sex; rather, she was saying that at certain times, like during a funeral, she considers it inappropriate for HER to be thinking about sex. Assuming she’s not psychic, the only way this becomes a problem is if her partner lets her know that he is thinking about or wanting it. And yeah, I agree, it would be totally inappropriate to let someone know you are horny while they’re trying to grieve at a funeral!
Similarly, when a wife makes it clear that she’s grieving over a recent miscarriage and is not ready to resume threesomes, it’s time to let that issue drop for a while. Nobody’s forcing the husband not even to think about sex (as if that were possible), but it’s still inappropriate for him to go presumptively speaking for her to strangers with whom he’s preparing potential hookup arrangements. This is true even if sex is a comforting subject/activity for him during his own time of grief, because to put it bluntly, he wasn’t the one who needed a doctor’s okay for sex because of what his body just went through.
Like wendykh, I feel the significance of what she experienced in the miscarriage is being a bit glibly overlooked here. Two years of trying to have a baby, followed by a tragic loss only three weeks ago? She needs some grieving time, and his actions interfered with that. From an objective point of view we realize that people grieve differently and sexual desires don’t just shut off because of grief, or may be consoling. But from her perspective, I think it would seem like he didn’t care that much, which is devastating. Can this be acknowledged, at least? I don’t feel like Dan gets that at all.
Hey Dan, you know that gay sex has nothing to do with what you do but rather the sex of the person you do it with.
If you were a right-on guy instead of the wanna-be jerk you sometimes luvtabe, you’d ofter to suck Cumming’s dick on camara to enable him to make the gay choice.
Instead you’ve tacitly accepted the phobe myth that a cocksucking male is queer while a cocksuckee male isn’t.
#189
Comming again; that’s Cummins’ dick which would be cumming.
#190
Cum is in the dictionary, but comming ain’t.
#186
Uh, so what’s the ‘legitimate’ gay rights position when cumming? Standing or kneeling or both?
@22 , 69 et al
It makes more sense that this is an adaptive trait to increase genetic population health. The greater genetic diversity the better, and that’s maintained by having different people attracted to different things. Some men like Beyonce, some like Michelle Williams, some like Rachel Maddow, and some like Taye Diggs. I’d like a 5-way with all of them, but that’s just me.
“She needs some grieving time, and his actions interfered with that.”
No. Her decision to snoop in his email interfered with that.
“From an objective point of view we realize that people grieve differently and sexual desires don’t just shut off because of grief, or may be consoling. But from her perspective, I think it would seem like he didn’t care that much, which is devastating. Can this be acknowledged, at least? I don’t feel like Dan gets that at all.”
To paraphrase the above paragraph: “It doesn’t matter how you actually feel about it. What matters is how I feel about how you feel about it.”
Had she had the sense to stay the hell out of his email, both of them would have had the freedom to deal with the grief in their own personal fashion and she would never have had the need to write this letter.
@189: I think I saw it as “you’re a jackass, so I’m not into giving you pleasure. You can get me off without any complaints, though.”
“Stephen Colbert”, not Stephen Colbert. There are enough tin ears here to roof a stadium.
193, beccoid– No. The trait doesn’t know what genetic health in a population is. The only thing the trait does is survive or not, pass its genes onto the next generation or not. It is either adaptive or not. Maybe it’s a little more complicated than that because the environment is always changing, and there’s social environment to be considered for social animals. Also, traits work or don’t work in conjunction with other traits. But just saying that genetic diversity is good for a population doesn’t pan out. Diversity consisting of non-adaptive traits is not good for a population.
#189
Your interpretation is a fine example of conventional wisdom.
In Dan’s example, pleasure occurs from ego gratification resulting from the challenge itself. Dan has knowingly chosen conventional wisdom as his premise because he gains by doing so.
Dan makes his living from sex talk. Like Howard Stern the more outrageous he is, the more attention he gets, and the greater his potential return.
Problem is in the conventional assumption that sucking someone off only provides pleasure to the recipient. But oral sex may in fact provide pleasure to both, neither, or only one of the participants, and the conventional assumption isn’t necessarily gay friendly.
#199
Oh crap, what a waste all this is!
Sorry to have added to it.
It . . . there isn’t really a Canadian politician who has the brass to assert that being gay is a choice while sporting the name “Cum Ins”, as in the classic gay gangsta saying “I gotta get some cum up ins,” right?
*wikipedia*
Oh, damn. There is.
Well, I might actually pay for a video of him getting cummed in. Suck it good, John.
Suzy @160; the only kind of sex that I judge , or care about, is sex that’s NOT CONSENSUAL! Why would I care about incest that’s between adults?! Most incest involves people that are raped by cousins, brothers or (even my OWN brother who bugged me ALL thru my early teens to do inappropriate things, or show him my tits, or whatever-I never would). If you think that THAT b.s doesn’t wear on you, letmetellya.. All infidelity, however, is CONSENSUAL. & it’s fascinating to me how you jumped right on my post, saying that you,re not uptight/insecure/ tightly wound,whatever. Your point would be more believable if you weren’t SO defensive. I’m glad your husband & you agree on the same boundaries. & I feel safe in assuming that no one on this board is trying to lure you both out for drinks & have sex w/you.
Being Catholic is not a choice. It’s something people are born with.