Too much (understandable) resentment in her words. This one's done, l-dub.

Put a fork in it!

The underlying problem here is your husband's selfish assholery, which is not something that finding an extracurricular play partner will fix. Forget about that and just DTMFA.

@1,2,

They've been married 15 years. If just dumping him on the spot were so easy she never would have written at all.

BBOK should indeed take her own advice, and find someone else with whom to have the kind of sex she wants. It probably won't take long for her to start wondering why she's with her husband. And it probably won't take him long to start wondering where he's going to find someone else to put up with his bullshit. Kinky people tend to expect a quid pro quo.

It’s not bad advice, and it’s kind of what I expected Dan to say as I read this but I wonder how well it would work in practice. If I were craving tender emotional sex I don’t think a secondary partner would cut it.

I’m also not poly but I dont get the impression LW is either.

Oh, she should find someone else to have sex with alright - after leaving her selfish, uncompromising kinkster of a husband in the dust. She is clearly not interested in fulfilling his "fantasy" of having no needs or no sexual interests outside of his own, and given how long this has gone on and that he cannot (or will not) stop insisting that she join him, much less put her pleasure first for once? I am calling it; this marriage is dunzo.

I am puzzled as to why you didn't tell her to DTMFA given how single-mindedly shitty her husband is being. A side piece (or polyamorous lover) is not going to clear the resentment from the air, and no amount of therapy is going to turn him into someone other than who he is - which is a lousy lay (for her, at least) who leaves his wife feeling bored, used, and undesirable.

DTMFA! DTMFA! DTMFA!

@3 non sequitur.

“(my husband's ultimate sex life is one where two blindfolded people in impenetrable costumes stand at opposite sides of the room and throw massive butt plugs at each other)”

This is an exceptional parenthetical.

Oy, what a situation. She should absolutely try finding an/other partner/s, but I have the feeling it won't work out as hoped. Either it won't be enough, the husband will get jealous, it will make her realize even more what a dick he's being, she won't be able to put up with constant elaborate bullshit anymore, or some combination of these things. Not that I desire the end of a 15-year marriage, but maybe she's better off that way. "Awaken," indeed.

He's just not that into you. He's inattentive and unwilling to have the kind of sex you like (whether he has erections or not - presumably a bisexual woman is aware that "sex" is not only PIV, so it's not actually necessary for him to have an erection), and the sex he does want to have sounds like it almost all either involves other people (literally or role play) or reductive objectification (which is fine if everyone's into it, but in this context as part of a pattern that includes no attentive sex as a couple, it very much seems like Husband isn't into LW sexually as a human person, since everything listed removes her as his focus).

You can stay married and still date other people, but it sounds to me like your best move is to a companionate marriage where you pursue sexual and romantic relationships with other people or splitting up.

Yeah what they all said. Another case of Dan Prescribes A Side Piece But Do You Want This Relationship Really? aka DPASPBDYWTRR. Somebody could make a snappier name.

I need a good ergonomic strawberry diddler. (Enjoyed the LW's writing though the situation is a downer.)

Agreed that this LW is a better writer than most. Too bad her husband sucks.

It seems like a part-time ordinary sex partner may not be the solution. It's the loving, appreciating, kinky-or-not primary partner that she deserves.

How many letters from women whose partner is a sexual dud have we had lately. LW, this man is too much hard work so why do you stay with him. Sounds like you have spent enough of your life indulging this child man, give it a miss and move on.

Ugh DTMFA. He sounds like a selfish arsehole. I'm sure the LW will have no trouble at all getting someone else given how impressively GGG she is. She deserves someone far better.

i. Husband has a porn addiction for some years.
ii. Husband has expectations of perfectly-scripted, extreme-kink-only sex "scenes" [in quotes].
iii. He cannot maintain an erection without either a complicated script with roles and props and costumes and toys, or going through the motions of romantic sex as long as I keep up a constant stream of "in character" dirty talk.
iv. My husband's ultimate sex life is one where two blindfolded people in impenetrable costumes stand at opposite sides of the room and throw massive butt plugs at each other.
v. I told my husband to see a Dominatrix.

This letter just leaves with more questions, among them:
1. Husband is both addicted to port and extreme kink, when does he have time for the rest of his life?
2. What constitutes "extreme-kink-only 'scenes,'" in her mind, and why was "scenes," in quotes?
3. All their scenes involve "complicated scripts," "roles," "props," "costumes," and "toys," or alternatively require constant "'in character' dirty talk?"
4. The ultimate scene is obviously nonsense, but does husband want out of a kink connection?
5. Is husband definitely a submissive or switch?

I am not one to call fake, but there is definitely missing information.

I have to go to work.

@16 This description of the husband seemed a little crazy to me too.

Assuming all of this is true, LW may want to consider the possibility that drugs have entered the picture. It's not normal for people to be hyper-focused on one very specific fantasy like that. But on meth it is. That would also account for the extreme self-centeredness of his play.

None of this is a smoking gun, of course. But it wouldn't surprise me.

It would also account for how his sexual activities may be taking over his life (if, indeed, they are).

Yup, I too was thinking that not only should he outsource his kinks, she should outsource her vanilla. Mr BBOK sounds exhausting. BBOK should set a timetable of how often she's willing to have kinky sex -- once a week? once a month? -- and stipulate that all other sex she'll be having will be vanilla, whether it's with him or someone else. And that he's free to seek more kink, paid or unpaid (within a budget), but that her job is done. Personally, I would be leaning towards DTMFA myself.

Corydon @17, interesting theory.

There are awful situations, and then there are awful situations we feel responsible for causing ourselves. The latter is many times worse. The first thing in helping BBOK feel better is assuring her that she didn't do anything to cause this. If she hadn't helped her husband get past his sexually repressed upbringing, he'd still have a limp dick for vanilla sex. She just wouldn't know why. She'd just think her marriage was one where the sex died and would be wondering if she was no longer attractive to him because she was 15 years older or because he was sick and wouldn't see a doctor or something else like that. If he wasn't having her script whole sexual kink scenes designed to make him happy, he'd be having her create whole non-sexual scenes to make him happy, maybe ones that involve her doing housekeeping to his specifications. (We don't know that he's not a controlling bastard in that way too.)

I hope BBOK will tell us what the rest of her relationship with her husband is like. That would make a difference in whether I advise her to divorce, deliver an ultimatum, or look for vanilla sex elsewhere. I suppose it's possible that her husband is terrific in other areas besides sexually. Maybe he's kind and supportive and a good friend to her otherwise. If that's the case, we need to know it because a companionate marriage where they don't have sex at all and neither of them get what they want is also a possibility. It's not one I recommend it, but I bring it up.

Just to name the options:
1. Divorce and both go their separate ways. (Shorthand: DTMFA.)
2. Convince him finally that they both need to get the sex they like with other people.
3. Stay together with no sex for either of them.

This isn't relevant to advice, but I did wonder about something. I can't get a picture of what sort of kink sex the husband wants. Dominatrix makes me think he wants to be the submissive one with someone dominating him, but then he seems to want the woman on a leash being peed on which would make me think he's doing the dominating. And I never thought I'd say this in response to anything in a letter to Dan, but the thing about impenetrable costumes and tossing buttplugs is just weird.

I think she should read Uniquely Rika.

Mtn. Beaver @11: Maybe "Dan Says Supplement, but Better to Substitute?" or "Substitute, not Supplement?" "SNS?"

I'm pretty sure the throwing buttplugs thing was facetious. Ultimately, you never know, but I can't imagine that she was serious about that. But maybe I'm just not imaginative enough.

Nice work Dan!

When I came to the end of all that I imagined the last paragraph would be a DTMFA, but I was pleasantly surprised by the open relationship recommendation.

Oh, and BBOK, "porn addiction" isn't a thing.

@23 p.s.
In other words, while they might best end up divorced, opening up might be a good thing to try now.

Calli @9, curious2 @24: It's been 15 years, so baby steps. Once she's connected with "an attentive partner" or two, she'll have a whole new perspective.

Not long after that, Mr. BBOK will find himself lurking alone, on the periphery of kink parties, in his impenetrable costume, with his massive, unemployed butt plugs. He should probably read this old column:

https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/03/28/39750104/selfish-adult-baby-risks-losing-best-thing-he-ever-had

At the heart of BBOK's letter the question isn't 'how' but 'why'. Props to Dan for printing a tough one and giving BBOK the opportunity to see it in print. I wish her the best.

There are two Origin Stories possible IMO:

Your husband was born "naturally" kinky, but into a repressive family
His family's sexual oppression made him more likely to be an extreme kinkster, but that fact was... repressed - until know.

I lean towards explanation 2. I don't think your gentle engagements with his kinks are a particularly strong factor.

One thing that caught my eye that may be contributing to you and your husbands inability to get on the same page: "I don't have any sexual hangups". While this could be true, it's unlikely - we've all got our stuff, and just because it doesn't come from trauma doesn't mean it's not a hangup. And there is no "ideal sexual attitude" anyhow. I could see this becoming a problematic dynamic in the relationship in which one of you is the Damaged Party and the other one is the Perfect-cum-Healer Party. This would contribute to hubbie's sense of extreme kink being his only "cure" and of his expectations that you'd fulfill those desires. That you're consistently willing to get 80% of the way with him might leave him functionally trapped in seeing what he believes to be relief hovering just off shore, bound to pull into port and day now, rather than what might be a more accurate perception of what you are willing to enjoy or not.

First of all, what a GGG wife. I don't know that many people could have made the adjustments and accommodations she seems to have. I mean, we all remember the woman who dumped her boyfriend because he had a foot fetish, right? Also, I'll echo that the writing was great--and like schmacky, I loved the sentence, "(my husband's ultimate sex life is one where two blindfolded people in impenetrable costumes stand at opposite sides of the room and throw massive butt plugs at each other.") Her frustration is palpable. And more than understandable.

I think several people here have given better responses than Dan, notably neatokeato @6, and Fichu @19, whom I believe is some sort of therapist--she really dove into the issues.

I wondered if the letter isn't an exaggeration: the lw certainly has a flair for expression and she's also incredibly frustrated and resentful, both of which are fuel for a tad bit of hyperbole. I also wondered whether the letter was a fake--an example of someone posting what they thought would be a "gotcha!"-type letter in order to get Dan to either sign off on non-monogamy, or to get him to advocate dumping--or more likely, to get Dan to counsel her to roll with it all and embrace it all. That is a longshot, and I don't typically begin with the presumption of fakery (in fact, I'm probably far too trusting and gullible and rarely look for hidden motives), but this was so over-the-top in its escalation (maybe not the kinks themselves, but the proliferation of them).

But you know what stood out to me as eminently plausible? The selfishness of one partner And the exhaustion and resentment of the one trying to constantly hit a flying target with no apparent gratitude and no effort made on the other person's part. That is a dynamic that transcends sex, and it's far too common and therefore believable.
Because I simply cannot find it in me to believe that this same man is considerate in all other ways: that he pulls his weight, that he is kind and compassionate and in any way a loving partner. He is so selfish--and between orchestrating his elaborate kink scenes (or at least dreaming them up while he lives her to actually put them together), the excessive masturbation which necessitates the visits to the counselor for his "porn addiction," the visit to the couples' therapist, and, I would hope, some sort of job, I don't know when he'd find the time to do anything else for him or them, let alone just for her.

To me, this is a clear DTMFA situation, not an "outsource-the-affectionate-touch" situation (which I agree with others, doesn't get at the heart of the matter), and the fact that Dan didn't suggest this makes me think that there is more to this situation than we know (but perhaps Dan does). Do they have young kids? Has the lw been off the job market for years? Would it be economically unfeasible to divorce? Are there other factors, like an issue the lw has that we don't know about? Because if there aren't some really compelling reasons for them to stay together, I think she's better off leaving.

To begin with, I thought this was a case of a woman who couldn't advocate for her most basic due. Then it emerged what the lw thought of her husband--the strawberry-diddler fancier who can't boil an egg, the joke about the buttplug-chucking and impermeable costumes. The LW is a funny, high-spirited person. She is missing out on not having good sex, and the world is missing out on her. Go forth and find good sex!

@19 Fichu and @28. nocute raise a good question: why stay with this guy, rather than dump TMFA and find someone else? It shouldn't be because the LW feels she has sired a Frankenstein's monster. As Dan is at pains to say, she clearly hasn't.

I don't believe that attentive, emotionally connected, 'unadorned' sex is the preserve of monogamy. My guess would be that more people suppose it is--or think that it has to be that way for them--than might actually work out to be so. These people wanting loving, relatively vanilla sex haven't tried nonmonogamy--for reasons of 'ideology', morality or normative social or moral codes. Some will have stewed in unsatisfying relationships instead.

@19. Fichu. I can be brought to my knees in sexual delight at the sight of a woman on a leash being peed on; but I'm not Dominant. Nor am I primarily voyeuristic. Part of the delight is that something else so hot and unconstrained--and so differently from what I'm doing--is going on in the same dungeon. As well as reveling in self-display, I get an inclusive and heady sense of being part of a kink community. (I don't want anything to be scripted).

The point to me is that BBOK thinks her husband's demands will be never-ending and that they're tending in a direction where satisfaction will be ever more elusive. The more flaccid he is during sex, and the quicker, the further-out the kink he will propose. (And the more footling and contemptible to her). It seems she's spoken to him about this. He hasn't heard. It's not specifically about sex to her. It's that he's being unreasonable. Maybe she should just confront him with 'you're being unreasonable' even more stridently one last time. If he makes no effort to connect to her in a lovingly intimate, un-kinky way, then she can decide whether her next step will be to leave the marriage or find her own partners on a poly basis.

Humans can develop behavioral addictions to almost anything; some common ones are gambling, eating, video games, adrenaline rushes, shopping... I don't see why watching porn would be an exception. Certainly, there are far fewer people with actual behavioral porn addictions than those who are "diagnosed" by people in their lives, but I'm sure there are, indeed, some people addicted to porn. In fact, I was in residential treatment with a couple of them. Behavioral addiction is usually defined as a behavior that has become compulsive, in which an individual feels they have no choice but to engage, despite adverse consequences. Note both the compulsion (loss of control) and the adverse consequences. Someone who watches a lot of porn but has control over that behavior and/or is not doing it so much that it lowers their ability to function does not have a porn addiction. However, it is entirely possible that the husband does, indeed, have such a behavioral addiction. I'm inclined to take the LW's word for it, but ultimately, we can't know for sure.

@3

"If just dumping him on the spot were so easy she never would have written at all."

Never said it would be easy, only that it's the only viable solution.

@31 CalliopeMuse
"there are far fewer people with actual behavioral porn addictions than those who are "diagnosed" by people in their lives"

Yes that's what I meant--it's a major sub-theme of this column. People can be addicted to everything, but rarely will that be the case even when claimed in this column.

The only thing a relationship can't survive is contempt, and her letter drips with it. Funny and well-written as it was. He may deserve it, but she's going to have to address it before anything can get better.

30- Harriet-- Thanks for your explanation. I ought to know better than to think everyone falls into neat categories of vanilla, dom, or sub. There's so much more, infinite variety.

20- Nocute-- Thanks. I'm not a therapist (work at a university), and I've had enough bad experience with therapists not to like the profession much, but yours is still a supreme compliment. I believe there must be good therapists out there even if they've mostly, for me personally, done more harm than good. Mostly I try to channel Carolyn Hax. I think you nailed it when you talk about the selfishness of one partner and the resentment and exhaustion of the other.

One principle I try to bring to my comments here is that sex is usually a red herring. In this letter, the kink bit is outside my experience and almost outside my comprehension (almost, not absolutely), but when I look beyond it, I'm left with the selfishness/resentment thing.

Maybe there's someone who's good at searching Dan's archives who can find a letter from many years back written by the wife of an adult baby. I'm only going from memory, but I believe it was similar to this one. The husband had a thing for dressing in diapers and being babied. The wife didn't mind doing that some of the time but wanted vanilla sex the rest of the time. The husband either wouldn't or couldn't do vanilla. (Like I said, I'm unsure of details.) The part I remember is that Dan said the letter shocked him, and that wasn't because there was anything shocking about the adult baby business (obviously). Dan was shocked because people willing to indulge that fantasy/kink are so rare that it was hard to believe the husband would risk losing the prize he had.

@35: Yes, california reader, the lw shows contempt--all the funniest bits of language were in service of expressing contempt. This is a problem, but I'm not entirely sure that the solution rests solely with the contemptuous spouse. She may be more naturally inclined to be contemptuous, but contempt doesn't typically spring from nowhere. It sounds like the husband has had ample therapeutic opportunities to see how much this is affecting his wife and to consider compromising in order to help his marriage. The lw doesn't say whether he's made any good-faith attempt to consider her needs or to find alternative ways to meet his. Perhaps she just left that part out of the letter. But if this letter is a more-or-less accurate representation, it's no wonder she's adopted the tone she has and this marriage may not be salvageable. I would argue that a selfish/resentment relationship model is also not worth salvaging.

You forgot to suggest option 2 that she dtmfa. Bottom line a selfish lover who obviously doesn't give two fucks about your needs is a selfish person in the rest of your life, I'd almost guarantee it. Without big changes on his part I don't know why you want to stay with him.

Fichu @36, fubar @25 found the letter:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2019/03/28/39750104/selfish-adult-baby-risks-losing-best-thing-he-ever-had

My thoughts on the letter: the husband was "crippled by shame from having grown up in an extremely sex-negative atmosphere with a prudish, religious parent," and probably still has a lot of issues. He is treating his wife like an thing and not a person, either because of lacking empathy or because he's actually sadistic and enjoys her misery.

I recommend a separation while she sees if he's serious enough about saving the marriage to get individual therapy and work on his missing empathy.

Erica, 39- Sorry, that was unobservant of me. Glad to see that fubar and I were thinking alone the same lines.

Fichu @41: And there's another one in this week's column. The poor guy's wife is doing GGG all wrong.

@21 or come to think of it, good old Relationship Broken, Add More People might cover things already.

Honestly I really dislike Dan's insistence that Every Marriage Must Be Preserved and that opening relationships will save even the worst marriage.

LW just dump this guy. You aren't responsible for his selfishness, and you would both be better off finding partners who actually want the things you both want, instead of expecting the other person to become someone different.

Because it's not just vanilla the LW is craving it's the emotional connection. It's having a partner who's willing to make her a priority instead of his fantasies.

She's either not gonna get that from hookups, or if she finds a guy who can give her that why stay married to the kinkster?

Just end things already Yeesh.

LW, this man seems to not be in working order, sexually. He can’t relate to you except thru roles, and I can understand why you feel neglected emotionally. He sounds psychologically unwell, and he is not facing it. And he won’t while you collude with him.
He needs intensive therapy, perhaps milieu therapy, where he is forced to own his compulsions. He needs mental health guides now, before he spins right out there. Close down sex with him, and insist he face his damage. You are doing neither of you any good continuing this way.
Yes. You have helped create a monster by letting this go on, for how many fucking years, indulging him.
I’m not judging you because I did the same. Us women are trained that way. Bend and twist and turn. Stop doing it. He is an emotionally damaged man who needs professional help.

This level of obsession with kink really makes me think we're missing the bigger picture here. My first thoughts are that he's maybe got ADHD, Asperger's, or a more general autism spectrum disorder. As someone with Asperger's I'm rather inclined to suggest it's that, but there's a lot of overlap between the disorders.

Surely if he was on the spectrum it would show in other parts of his life, Athari8178? The LW has been with him for many years.
He had a strict religious upbringing, and he probably has not dealt with it, so it’s informing his compulsions, his kinks. He creates emotional distance with his wife by these behaviours, so why does he do that. What is he scared of.

Curious @23, why do you say porn addiction isn't a thing? People can get addicted to gambling, food, shopping, social media. Of course they can get addicted to porn. This is not to say that all porn use is porn addiction, just as not all drinking is alcoholism. But of course some people overdo porn to the point of dependency or negative effects on their lives. I'm not sure how you can deny this is the case. (Edit, further down the thread I see you stopped denying it, thanks Calliope for making this point first.)

Fubar @25: Yes, I thought of that old column too. Mr BBOK doesn't know how lucky he is and he needs to learn to show his GGG wife some appreciation.

Nocute @28, the letter definitely read as exaggerated for literary effect to me, but a real problem nonetheless.

California @35, funny, I didn't read contempt into the letter. Frustration, yes, and an attempt to have a sense of humour about the situation. But if she felt contempt I think she would already have left, or be asking a question about how or whether to leave rather than how to fix the situation. She particularly would not be asking about how to enjoy his kinks if she felt contempt for them, for him.

Anon @44: I agree she won't find tenderness in hookups. "If she finds a guy who can give her that why stay married to the kinkster?" Because that guy himself may be poly and have other partner/s? Because she doesn't seem like she wants to end the marriage, or that she's unwilling to have -some- kinky sex? Sure, not everyone is cut out to have emotional connections with more than one person, but plenty are. If she wants to stay married she could try to find out whether she's one of them. (As I said above, personally I'd DTMFA but if she doesn't want to this may be a possible alternative.)

@36. Fichu. I couldn't agree with you more than the sex is usually a red herring. The problem is more often, and more fundamentally, that people have become unreasonable--have become entrenched in their unreason--and have lost the capacity to listen.

Things can be difficult because the compulsion of sex, often, can be that it's beyond reason. In this way, one partner eg with the impermeable rubber-suit and buttplug-chucking kink replies to the partner saying 'you're being unreasonable' by saying 'but it's sex' ie 'but reason goes out the window'. Reason may go out the window, but consent can't. And in 99.9% of cases, I would think, maybe like you, that appeals to reason and a sense of decency had purchase.

@48 BiDanFan
"I see you stopped denying it"

Either I, or you and Calli both (I'm not sure) misunderstood what it meant when I wrote @23 "isn't a thing".

Doesn't 'not a thing' mean 'it's not a trend among people'? (Whereas you if you two are correct in correcting me, it means something like 'it never happens'.)

Obviously most everything happens (everything is 'a thing').

But what is a trend, what is not isolated but common, is people calling people porn-addicted because they are porn-negative from various repressive influences like religion and insecurity. Pointing this out has been, as I said @34, "a major sub-theme of this column." Now, it's just been me the last few times; did everyone else but me stop being bored with banging this drum?

Usually it gets banged generally when a wife freaks out about her husband ever masturbating, but I think that /most/ times the phrase is used it is b.s., hence I think it deserves to be called out.

I don't think actual porn addiction is as uncommon as you think it is, curious2. Again, there are certainly more people who are accused of having one than actually do, but I knew several young people (it was a program for young adults, so everyone was young) in residential treatment who were effectively addicted to many internet-related things. Porn and cam-girls were second only to video games (these were usually straight cis guys, incidentally). Like many internet-related behavioral issues, I think it's more prevalent among my generation, who grew up with computers and are usually more familiar with them.

It usually wasn't the main reason these guys were in residential treatment, but it was certainly not an uncommon complicating factor. Usually tied to complex depression, as well.

And often certain personality disorders, too.

CalliopeMuse @51 re "several young people ... in residential treatment who were effectively addicted to many internet-related things"

Were they there by choice, because the state put them there, or because their parents disapproved of their hobbies?

@51 Calli
"I don't think actual porn addiction is as uncommon as you think it is"

Ok, maybe you are right. But in your example:

"I knew several young people...residential treatment who were effectively addicted to many internet-related things."

I don't know if "porn addicted" is the absolute best way to describe them. Not just because it's only one of a number of "internet-related things"; maybe they're just generally obsessive-compulsive and masturbation was just a normal human need sitting there innocently waiting to join the party and bring a little joy to it.

But yes, "porn addicted" is /a/ way to describe this, even if not the best.

Now on a tangent, more generally, when discussing "porn addiction" I think we need to bear in mind that this concept not infrequently is wielded as male-bashing. (Not that some women don't enjoy porn too.) There's precious little male-bashing that doesn't just reside in the minds of the MRA, but I think this is a case where it's valid to remind those that love men that this is part of who men are. And to respect that as fully as I scold men who don't respect women to respect women.

Now changing the topic back to the letter; I don't recall seeing any info that made me think that the husband is actually a porn addict; while THE WIFE SAYS that's what he was seeing a therapist for who knows if he was, and who knows if the therapist was treating him for the real kind or the (as you say yourself) more common trumped up kind.

Erica @54 Everyone in the program was there voluntarily (legally anyway). It wasn't a hospital; you couldn't get committed there. A few people got ultimatums from their parents that if they didn't go into treatment they would get cut off (this was most common among those addicted to hard drugs). Most people were there for mental illness, substance abuse, or both. Like I said, the people I knew with porn addictions weren't there for the porn addiction, but because of their main issues like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, etc. Often the behavioral addiction was triggered by and fed into their main issue. I don't know if any of their parents even knew about the porn addiction or if it just came out in therapy.

curious2 @55 I meant to say that there were many people addicted to different internet things, and several were addicted specifically to porn or cam-girls, second in number (of those I heard about) only to those addicted to video games.

CalliopeMuse @56, ah, so these young men were themselves unhappy about the amount of time they spent online (whether on video games, camming or porn).

It certainly makes more sense to talk about an addiction or problem behavior when the person with the behavior feels it's a problem.

Curious @50, "isn't a thing" means "doesn't exist." Please don't use those words if you mean something else.
I'm willing to accept that some pearl clutchers jump to "he's addicted to porn!!1!" when someone is just engaging in the normal behaviour of masturbation while using porn, which the pearl clutcher themself does not find necessary. But since you've accepted that porn addiction CAN be a thing, did this kink-addicted husband not strike you as one of the rare cases who might plausibly, actually be addicted to porn?

@56 Calli
"I meant to say that"

Got it, thank you very much!

@58 BiDanFan
""isn't a thing" means "doesn't exist." Please don't use those words if you mean something else."

OMG reading https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Not%20a%20thing
I see you're correct! Here's what threw me:

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=it%27s%20a%20thing
"it's a thing
Phrase used to describe a phenomenon..."

I've always just assumed to /not/ be a thing was the inverse of being a thing.

"I'm willing to accept that some pearl clutchers jump to"

I just want to note that this "willing to accept" seems to me rather mild agreement here given all the times it's come up here over the years, and all the time Dan railed against it.

"did this kink-addicted husband not strike you as one of the rare cases who might plausibly, actually be addicted to porn?"

(OMG I hate when I have to re-read a letter! I tend to go off on tangents and forget the letter entirely.)

Hmm, good point. The thing I'm absolutely sure about from the wife's letter is that the husband is a thoroughly insensitive and inconsiderate jerk. She keeps saying that he's obsessed/addicted, but I'd've been more inclined to accept these if it these weren't equally explainable by him simply being thoroughly insensitive and inconsiderate.

But again, good point, she isn't the type to call normal male behavior 'porn addiction'. (She's sex-positive, not feeling insecure because her husband masturbates thinking about someone else, and she's not religion-repressed.)

And he has ruined their actual sex life through finding himself. (Perhaps I should be inferring [though it not being stated] that he 'found his sexuality' through porn?)

The biggest thing that diverted me, is that there's no info here that says that he picks porn over their real sex life. (Though it does seem that he's so insensitive and inconsiderate that their real sex life is ruined.)

OK, certainly a guy so insensitive and inconsiderate certainly would have the road to 'porn addiction' paved for him. So I agree, if she says he took that road I should have believed her, instead of reacting to the phrase like it was Pavlov's bell. (I'm afraid that the phrase is somewhat triggering, because of the times it's used by those who don't accept who men are. I'm sure y'all remember all the letters in which Dan recommends that the BF hide his porn use and the GF try to pretend it isn't happening.)

Curious @59: "Willing to accept" didn't mean grudgingly -- it means I concede you one point in the debate about how much of a thing porn addiction is. You're correct -- lots of people do allege addiction when such a conclusion is entirely uncalled for. But yes, the reason why Dan and commenters didn't rail against it this time seems to be, not because we're tired of banging the drum, but because it appears justified. As you say, it's not being thrown about by a clueless prude; the LW is anything but. I'm sure there will be future pearl clutchers who will need to be set straight, and future commenters will oblige!

(FWIW, "bang the drum" is as knee-jerk triggering to me as "porn addiction" appears to be for you, because it is indelibly linked to Sporty's crusade in my mind. So yeah -- the idea that "banging the drum" is something any of us -should- be doing took some mental gymnastics for me!)

@BiDanFan
I think you're right that, as a guy, "porn addiction" triggered me. And looking back, I think the root of that trigger wasn't even the addiction label, it was repeated letters where women partners asked guys not to look at porn and even not to masturbate, which somehow all got conflated into a reflex of me reacting without thinking. And banging a drum like those little furry battery-operated toys do.

It's so rare that men are bashed, I have so little practice in interrogating the possibility.

@curious2 and @BiDanFan re @50: just to add data, I also thought "not a thing" meant "not something common," or "not an established trend" or "not part of the current zeitgeist," rather than "doesn't happen ever." Given that, as curious says, "It's a thing" means it's part of the zeitgeist, or something--it seems like "not a thing" should be the negation of "a thing," doesn't it?

Spoken language is slippery, ambiguous. This is why you can't do mathematics in it.

I'll throw in my two cents as a younger person:

I never stopped to think about whether being "a thing" meant something was common or merely existed. Not sure about that one. However, something being "not a thing" definitely means it doesn't exist, as opposed to not being common, at least in my understanding. Something being "not a thing" is somehow stronger than something being "a thing." I'm not necessarily a typical millennial and I'm often not up on the parlance of other youths, but I'm pretty sure that's that way I've heard it used.

Marriage must introduce an almost overwhelming future discounting and status quo bias because this sounded more like a hostage situation to me. The first hint of the sex club piss and I'd be like thanks dood hard pass (and I'm high libido).

Ciods @63, I thought that since both CalliopeMuse and I, two completely different generations of internet users, had interpreted "it's not a thing" as "there's no such thing" that this must be the established meaning. I'm also less convinced that "it's a thing" means "it's a trend." To me, if someone says something is a thing my interpretation is that it exists; that the person saying it is a thing is pointing out that their audience may not have known it exists. Example: "Furries are a thing." To me this sentence represents someone pointing out a subculture which exists, and has probably existed for quite some time, but thanks to the internet we all know about it now. It would not suggest to me, "Everyone's getting into the furry subculture now, daddy-o, don't be a square."

But yeah, re Calliope @64, someone saying "Furries aren't a thing" does sound stronger than "Furries are a thing." It's denying their existence, rather than claiming they aren't popular. Anyway. Perhaps all this means is that old people like me and Curious should use traditional words instead of trying to speak millennial. :)

@65 ciods
(Is "CIODS" an acronym? Google suggests a few unlikely ones.)

Thank you for giving me company having extrapolated from the 'it's a phenomenon' interpretation to the 'it's not a phenomenon' one.

(I wonder if, like when I get pronunciation wrong, this is about my having read the phrases more than heard them.)

"Spoken language is slippery, ambiguous."
...

@66 Calli
"as a younger person: I never stopped to think about whether being "a thing" meant something was common or merely existed."

No wonder spoken language is ambiguous; thanks a lot millennials! ("OK boomer.")

I guess this is the hallowed tradition of younger persons using language in a way that provokes older persons.

@66 BiDanFan
"I'm also less convinced that "it's a thing" means "it's a trend."

From the rest of your paragraph I think you sorta might though.

"To me, if someone says something is a thing my interpretation is that it exists; that the person saying it is a thing is pointing out that their audience may not have known it exists. Example: "Furries are a thing."

Either way it's about "it exists", but in this example what exists is a trend/phenomenon ("furries").

"To me this sentence represents someone pointing out a subculture which exists, and has probably existed for quite some time, but thanks to the internet we all know about it now. It would not suggest to me, "Everyone's getting into the furry subculture now"

Oh not, not "Everyone"(!), simply enough to be a trend. At least that's how I thought it was always used, but apparently (@66) some people use it ambiguously, so there's just no telling, ack!

"Perhaps all this means is that old people like me and Curious should use traditional words instead of trying to speak millennial."

I know that true, and that realization feels like a great loss from which I should just climb into my coffin; it was nice to fool myself that I had a good enough grasp on some usage that developed in the last third of a century to use it. When in reality I literally don't know what literally means anymore.

Curious @67, now I'm confused as to the meaning of the word "trend"!

I used furries as an example because they are never going to be popular with the mainstream, which to me is what a "trend" is. Jeans with the knees out, so trendy! A "trend" is something that is in this year, but wasn't two years ago, and won't be in five years' time. The furry subculture has been around for some time, but people outside that subculture haven't always known about them. Hence the reason someone might say, "Furries are a thing." And when mainstream people discover that furries exist, they are unlikely to jump on the bandwagon. So furries are not, to my mind, a trend. They're just, you know, a thing. :)

I shouldn't have said "trend," I should have said "a known phenomenon." See, this is ANOTHER example of me confusing math with English, because in math, "it exists" means there is at least one example, and you can say that if there is only one. But you would never say "Furries are a thing" if there was ONE person in the world doing it. By "it exists," here, you mean, enough people do it to make it...well...a thing ;) So I tried to say "trend" to make that clear, and just got us further into the morass.

But Bi, I only meant originally to say I think your usage is right (and our token young person backs you up); I was mostly just commiserating with curious. It always seems weird to me when "not x" doesn't mean the negation of x, in English.

curious @67, yes, ciods is (basically) an acronym. If you're curious (haha) you can email me: ciods8128@gmail.com. It gets a little close to identifying for me to explain here :)

BiDanFan @66 I should probably also try not to "speak millennial" unless I've heard something used over and over again. I usually end up using new slang wrong and mildly embarrassing myself. My vocabulary is approximately five or six years behind the vanguard, I think.

ciods @69 I make a terrible token young person -- I'm such a nerd that I'm not up on, like, anything. >_< When some phenomenon or celebrity comes up that I've never heard of (which happens often), I usually say that I live under a rock that's inside of a cave. It feels like I might as well. Don't take anything I say as representative of millennials at large unless I specifically reference hearing other people say it.

Calli @71, the fact that you're a major nerd is part of what makes you such an appealing young person. I'm much more interested in what you know, or have heard of, than some more representative young person (if such a thing really exists).

@68 BiDanFan
You're right, a trend is much more grand than a thing. I guess a thing is a niche or minor trend. Whereas a trend is /the/ thing.

@69 ciods
Congratulations on the auspicious number!

""a known phenomenon.""

Perfect.

@71 Calli
"I make a terrible token young person"

Please don't criticise the very best young person we've got.

Aw, thanks you guys. ^_^

is there some reason you can't just get divorced?