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Cisgender bi-female late forties, living in the Bay Area. My boyfriend and I have been dating six months and are very much in love. His friends party quite a bit, lots of drinking and other party favors, and we all enjoy feeling good on the dance floor. The first time I met one of his friends — a guy in his thirties — it was a big, fun night, I wanted his friend to feel included (it was mostly couples), so I put my arm around him and bumped hips with him on the dance floor. We were all dancing together. I’m pretty sure he grabbed my ass when I was making out with my boyfriend on the dance floor. A month later, we are all out dancing again and he started saying things like, “You’re trouble,” and, “If your ‘boyfriend’ wasn’t in the picture, we would have something going on.” I laughed but I also told him to stop. I explained that I’m very much in love with my boyfriend, who happens to be his friend, and I would never do anything to jeopardize our relationship. So, I used my words and shut him down. But I feel like I’m keeping a secret by not telling my boyfriend about this. I don’t want to cause issues between my boyfriend and his friend. Then my boyfriend mentioned that this friend had a crush on one of the other women in the group — a woman who part of a poly couple — so maybe he does this a lot? What do I do here?

Groping Really Isn’t Nice, Dude

You used your words — you shut that guy down — and good for you. Now you need to keep using your words: “That one friend of yours seems to have a crush on me too.” Tell your boyfriend you grinded (ground?) on his friend a little while everyone was dancing, just to be polite during that chem-fueled dance party, and his friend either misread your intentions (charitable read) or seized the opportunity (less charitable read) to grab your ass. And now he’s saying things that sound like they were lifted from a Netflix murder doc — “Only later did I realize he was planning to get my boyfriend ‘out of the picture’ permanently” — and now you’re worried about things escalating further.

While I generally don’t think dance floor gropers deserve the benefit of the doubt, GRIND, this guy is a known quantity: he’s hit on other people’s partners before, and yet the group keeps him around. So, he either has other redeeming qualities — like being able to take no for an answer after misreading someone’s signals (easy to do under the influence of drugs, alcohol, or dickful thinking) — or he hasn’t fully worn out his welcome with the group. (Or your boyfriend and his friend group are too tolerant of this guy’s bullshit.)

If your boyfriend gets angry with you after you tell him what’s been going on, GRIND, that’s a bad sign about your new boyfriend. If he sees this friend of his as the issue and asks you how you want him to proceed — let you handle it yourself, say something to his friend himself, check in with the whole group — that’s a good sign about your new boyfriend.

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I’m older than you’d think possible, but I continue to want, need and — interestingly enough — pretty easily find sexual partners of the kind I prefer. I’m a fem old gay and tend to seek out middle age very Dom type men. I like to wear lingerie for them and be as fem as possible. The problem is, as a normal bougie professional person, I don’t appear that swishy out of bed, though this changes behind closed doors. Then I become this ultra femme submissive thing. How schizophrenic is this? Now, I don’t feel at all trans and I am not a woman. Still, if my standard male attitude and look is out of whack with the person I am in the bedroom, should I be a little concerned? Am I obligated to bring my two identities into alignment? If so, how? Do I have an ethical duty to be more public about my private self? Or does it matter since I am of such an advanced age?

Pervert In Naughty Knickers

For many of us, PINK, sex play frees to be the opposite of the person we are — or the person we pretend to be — most of the time. Think of the cliché about the powerful CEO who loves being dragged around a commercial dungeon on a leash by a Dominatrix. Not only isn’t that CEO obligated to “merge his two identities” (the man he is in the C-suite, the sub he is in the dungeon), merging them would be a mistake. First, he’d instantly lose his job, which means he wouldn’t be able to afford those sessions with the Dominatrix. And even worse, merging his identities would deprive him of the contrast that makes those kink scenes hot. It’s not just the transgression that arouses him, but the ambiguity. Is the CEO the “real” him or is the sub the “real” him?

Same goes for you. You’re not trans — this isn’t about your gender identity — it’s about transgression and ambiguity and pretense and duality. You aren’t obligated to align these two very different versions of yourself, PINK, and you ultimately can’t align them. But you can enjoy them.

P.S. You can be a perv in private.

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On the Lovecast: A horny widow, a nervous bottom, and a ghosting. And Dan chats with Kelly Foster Lundquist, author of Beard: A Memoir of a Marriage.

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I have a specific attraction that feels both unusual and intense: I’m fascinated by the back of people’s heads — the occipital region, that curve where skull meets neck. It’s genuinely erotic for me, not just aesthetic. Are there fellow occipitophilists out there? And how do I bring this up with partners without sounding bizarre? I’d love to kiss and caress the backs of their heads, but I’m not sure how to introduce this desire. Is this common enough to have a community, or am I charting new territory?

David In London

Kissing someone on the neck — front or back — is a pretty standard move; if you were fucking someone from behind, it would be weird if you didn’t kiss them on the back of their neck. S0, this is a standard move/practice, DIL, and not some crazy new kink that requires a name and its own pride flag. It also doesn’t require advance discussion. (If someone doesn’t like being kissed on the neck — front of back — the onus is on them to let a new partner know to leave their neck unmolested.) You’re talking about kissing someone on the neck, DIL, not rearranging their guts. If a new partner comments on how much you like to zero in on that particular spot — that spot where skull meets their neck — then you can talk about your special attraction to that spot. But asking permission in advance to kiss them where they fully expect you to kiss them — and where they’ve almost certainly been kissed before — will just make it (and you) seem weird.

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I’m a gay man, early thirties, live in SF. There’s this guy. Some faces you just look at and you get a premonition that it’s the one you want standing opposite you on your wedding day. But he’s never felt the same way. Always ignored me on the apps. Years later, when I put on a bunch of muscle, he would entertain me but eventually ghost. It was a tough rejection, but I accepted it. Fast forward a year later, I’m messaging a torso on a platform. As it turns out, this random torso has the exact same kinks I do. We perfectly overlap where our kinks are concerned. We get to exchanging faces, and lo and behold, it’s him. It threw me for a loop. Although I would usually jump at the chance to hook up with him, this isn’t how I wanted it to happen. When you’ve been rejected by someone in real life, is it worth putting up with the emotional harm of engaging with them in kink life? How do you feel about kink generally becoming a mechanism to hook up with people who are out of our league?

Knowing It Needs Kink

On one hand, hooking up with this guy again — hooking up with a guy who has already rejected you in the most inconsiderate possible way — opens you up to being rejected by him again. And if he ghosts you again, KINK, you’re going to feel like a chump.

On the other hand… you’re kinky, he’s kinky, and he’s hot. If you can keep your expectations in check — your expectations around sex (it’s just a kinky play date) and your expectations about him (he’s a flake) — you might be able to enjoy hooking up. But seeing as you hoped to marry this man, it might be hard for you to keep those expectations in check.

That said, did you know he was kinky — and did he know you were kinky — before you started swapping messages on that kink app? If not, there’s a non-zero chance he didn’t pursue things with you in the past because he assumed you were vanilla. So, while you might not be his ideal physical type, KINK, you may have the sexual wiring he’s looking for in a partner. A shared interest in a particular kink can sometimes get you into a bedroom/dungeon/butthole you might not have found yourself in otherwise. In that way, kink can be a leveler where leagues are concerned. I know some objectively/conventionally hot kinky guys — think Heated Rivalry hot — who are married to men who aren’t in their league looks-wise, but who knock it out of the park for them kink-wise. Shoot your shot, dude!

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