Love and Leashes

Flashback: My last serious girlfriend was kinky. I am pretty vanilla — I’m not a natural sub — but I was game. We got into D/s play, and we went to some big fetish parties together. Her favorite “foreplay” was having me kneel between her legs while she showed me guys on dating apps she’d matched with and make me beg for her pussy. I was never into cuck stuff, but I have to admit that was hot (and obviously cuck-adjacent). Her fantasies weren’t my fantasies, but it turned her on so much it turned me on. And these really were her fantasies: she had an alt Twitter account since she was a teenager that was all FemDom content. We wound up breaking up for reasons that had nothing to do with our sex life or her kinks. We don’t live in the same city anymore, but we still follow each other on Instagram and DM on birthdays. Nothing inappropriate. We were together for three years and it’s been five years since our breakup.

Flashforward: My current serious girlfriend dug through my ex’s Instagram account and found pictures of us at fetish parties. She didn’t snoop on my phone — which means she didn’t read my DMs (thank God) — but she scrolled through hundreds of posts on my ex-girlfriend’s account to find pics of me in bondage and on a leash at a few parties. (Was that snooping?) Now my girlfriend says she wants to “get into” my kinks. I told her those aren’t my kinks. It was fun, I got into it because my ex was into it, but being dominated isn’t something I need. I would be down to explore BDSM (or anything else) with my current girlfriend if it felt like it was coming from an honest place, but it feels like she’s in some weird competition with my ex. We’ve been together for two years and she can be insecure and now she’s worried I’m bored with our sex life and I’m going to break up with her for someone kinkier. The fact that I “refuse” to do kink with her is becoming a thing. But this feels fake to me, since she never mentioned kink until she saw those pics (which my ex took down when I asked), but my girlfriend claims her interest in kink is sincere even if she only realized it after she saw those old photos.

I’m not sure what my question is or what I want you to tell me to do.

Vanilla Boy Kinky Past

I’m always gonna err on the side of telling a straight boy to get down on his knees and beg his girlfriend for her pussy — so, if you’re a regular reader, VBKP, you knew that was coming. And since you knew I was gonna tell you to do that, I suspect being told to do that was what you wanted. (Are you sure you’re not a natural sub?)

Zooming out: You should leverage this moment — brought to you by the not-quite-snooping-but-close your current girlfriend was doing — to have a conversation with your current girlfriend about your authentic kinks and your hard-wired sexual interests (which you don’t list) and her authentic kinks and hard-wired sexual interests (also not listed). If you’re both interested in more than just the vanilla sex, or your girlfriend is interested in trying new things, now would be a great time to compare your lists of non-vanilla sexual interests to see if there’s any overlap.

Dominant women are rare — that’s why dominant women can charge for it while dominant men have to give it away for free — and your odds of dating two “naturally” dominant women in a row are pretty slim. But they’re not zero. So, while your ex-girlfriend seems to have been consciously aware of her kinks from an early age — as her long-running alt Twitter would seem to prove — but it’s entirely possible your old pics made your girlfriend aware of her kinks for the first time. Not everyone with kinks and/or in the kink scene was consciously aware of their kinks at thirteen; that’s especially true of cis women, who tend to become aware of their kinks in adulthood whereas cis men tend to become aware of them in adolescence.

So, I think you should allow for the chance that your girlfriend’s sudden interest in D/s play is just as authentic as your ex-girlfriend’s long-standing interest in D/s play, VBKP, and seeing those old pics was the inciting/exciting incident that made your girlfriend aware of her kinks. And even if it turns out your girlfriend is going through the motions for silly reasons (and competing with someone her boyfriend broke up with five years ago would be very silly), what’s the harm? If she doesn’t enjoy it, VBKP, or you don’t enjoy it — if D/s play doesn’t work for you and your current the way it worked for you and your ex — you don’t have to keep doing it.

P.S. I would hate to be in a relationship with someone who would freak out if they stumbled over evidence that I’d sent a nice note to an ex on his birthday.

On the Lovecast: Learn all about pup play with Amp! Amp is a Producer, streamer and co-creator of the kink educational channel “Watts The Safeword.”
Have a listen to this week’s episode.

Love your show, helpful stuff. This is my first time writing in. I’m a 52-year-old bisexual man married to a lovely lady who’s five years older than I am. I feel like my soul (super melodramatic here) is shriveling up and dying. I’m sick of monogamy, sick of comfortable missionary-position sex once a week, and I’m really sick of the subtle bi-shaming comments like “that’s the gayest shirt I’ve ever seen.” She’s trying to be better, she really is, but navigating our divergent needs in our 12-year relationship is leading to communication breakdowns. Making matters worse, I have this awful habit of bringing difficult stuff up when I’m stoned — pot helps with my inhibitions (it also helps me sleep, so I’m stoned pretty much daily) — but she hates talking to me when I’m stoned. But everything is so fraught when it comes to my needs that I can’t talk about it when I’m not stoned. Basically, I’m tired of missionary-position sex once a week and I would like to wear a gay t-shirt once in a while without being judged or shamed. I feel like I’m being hollowed out. Anyhow, I need to figure out a fun non-stoned way to discuss without the conversation ending in tears.

High Isn’t Gonna Help

It’s the dick, right? You miss the dick? And the lack of dick in your life — other than your own — has you feeling unfulfilled? (Emphasis on “filled”?) And does your wife sense that? Or does she know it, HIGH, because you blurt it when you’re high? And you’re high every night? Which means you blurt it out a lot? And could her anxiety about you wanting to open the relationship be why she’s suddenly making bi-and-gay shaming comments about your t-shirts?

If you can’t talk about your needs when you’re not high and your wife doesn’t want to talk to you about them when you are high — which could be true or it could be an excuse to avoid the conversation — your best bet is a couple’s counselor. You won’t be high (or shouldn’t be high) when you’re sitting on that couch in the middle of the day, HIGH, and you won’t be able to avoid — a good counselor won’t allow you to avoid — the conversation you made the appointment to have.

But first you’ve got to figure out what it is you actually want. Would you feel fulfilled if you and your wife had more and better sex — not once-a-week missionary, but something freer and queerer? (Is the wife willing to peg you?) Or do you need the freedom to have sex with other men? If it’s the first thing, say that: you love her, but you need more variety. If it’s the second thing, say that — and that’s a hard thing to say, I realize, and it can be an even harder thing to hear. Those kinds of conversation often result in tears, HIGH, but they rarely end in tears. Eventually, you stop crying and start talking. And that’s when the real work — and the real negotiations — often begins.

P.S. For the record: bisexual people can make and honor monogamous commitments. HIGH has, up to now, honored the monogamous commitment he made to Mrs. HIGH. Monogamy isn’t for everybody — gay, straight, bi, pan, omni, whatever — and it’s not always forever.

P.P.S. I’ve seen gayer shirts.

I was interested to see your response to MOMS, who is unsure how and when to tell her children she’s non-monogamous. I’m at a different stage of that quandary. I know that you believe that romantic partners shouldn’t be introduced to kids until the relationship is well established, and I agree with that. When my son was a baby, though, I often brought him on coffee dates (as long as my date didn’t mind, of course). Now he’s almost two, and he sometimes hangs out with me and my boyfriend, a man I kiss and hug who isn’t my husband/his father. (I would no longer bring him on coffee dates with strangers –that just plain wouldn’t work!) Right now, this doesn’t seem any different to me from hanging out with any good friend of mine (I kiss and hug friends too – it’s not like I’m making out with anyone in front of my son). But I wonder what needs to change as he gets older and gets more aware of, well, everything. Should I restrict the time he spends with other romantic partners until they’re very well-established? I wouldn’t think twice about introducing him to a new friend, and my other partners aren’t potential new parents for him, so does it matter? Is this an opportunity to normalize non-monogamy right from the start? I’m inclined to be as open and casual about it as possible, but I understand your advice to MOMS — being “ethical” isn’t more important than my child’s feelings of comfort and safety.

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