I *always* try to keep my Brian in the loop.

I only knew David Rakoff through his writing and appearances on This American Life - but I always thought he was someone I would have loved to have known in real life.

My male hetero friends, that are all in couples, told me that I did right.

That's because none of your male hetero friends will ever be in the position of having a hot married woman who is out of his league begging to fly into town so she can suck and fuck his brains out.

@4:

Yeah, because why not fuck up one relationship when you can fuck up two?

seandr: That's actually making their opinion MORE valid. Seriously, every halfway attractive gay man gets an offer like this. (I've gotten multiple ones and I'm not even halfway attractive.) Most dudes think with their dicks and take them up on the offer. (Yo.) It's hard to say "no that's a horrible idea" when you've happily accepted yourself. But it doesn't make it less of a horrible idea.

Nice to know there are decent folks out there in the world. Made my day!

@Sabotage: Not sure I follow. Since the LW is the one who actually got the offer, his decision to refuse entails a real sacrifice. As far as his straight friends are concerned, the sacrifice is and will always remain purely hypothetical.

Saying you won't cheat? That's not honorable. Walking away from a super hot chick who's kneeling in front of you trying to unzip your pants? Now that's honorable. Crazy, but honorable.

I think that the word for what the letter writer has is "honor." Then again, I'm a straight guy, and apparently, my answer conforms to other answers from straight men.

I agree with @9. LW is honorable, and not a prude. He did the right thing.

"Don't trade up" is an old, old concept. It used to be expressed to Southern belles this way: "You've gotta go home with the boy whut brung you to the party." It is basic good manners and, long term, will bring you better opportunities than the short-term betrayal of "trading up."

Agree with @9 and @11, but since no one's mentioned it, I want to add that the big red flag that is the guy admonishing you for turning him down. You might think he's hot, but he sounds like a piece of shit.

The shock of seeing David Rakoff's name here brought tears to my eyes. I think we all miss him a lot, whether we knew him personally or not.

Ah, seandr, never stop being shallow.

LW's English is adorable. I'm guessing he's German.

The letter writer is not a prude. Just a well mannered and principled man.

Also, I am so tired of David Rakoff being dead. I miss his work a lot. He deserved more time. Goddamn it.

This is why I love you Dan. Perfect.

Right on, letter writer.

LW, stop thinking of this in terms of prudishness, decency, honour, whatever... And start thinking about all the potential problems and drama you avoided, not only for yourself, but also for the friend with whom you met these two guys (who, living in the same city as they are, would probably have gotten flak about it at one point).

And if your friends keep pestering you, just ask them how they would feel if they were the other, unwitting partner in the relationship...

Nice to see straight guys not coming off as the assholes in a letter!

LW sounds like an awesome dude, BTW.

LW, saying something doesn't make it so. People can CALL you a prude, but that doesn't MAKE you a prude. You're clearly not a prude, and you're clearly a man of honor. You're much better than the idiots who are calling you a prude; it sounds like you need a better group of friends.

A man who is interested in a threesome at all is not a prude. Thank you for showing the world that it's not just straight guys who can turn into name-calling crybabies when they find out they're not getting sex.

I find have total respect for this honest, deal-keeping non-prude! Thanks for showing that just because men think with their dicks doesn't mean they ARE dicks.

Dear LW - The only thing wrong with your standards is your insufficient confidence in them.

You know, as a bi woman who's had a few threesomes, friends with benefits, one night stands and experimented with a variety of fetish play, I've discovered that "prude" is the favorite first insult of assholes when I don't want to have sex with them.

Amusingly, they tend to follow up "prude" with "whore" and "slut".

Unfortunately for them, I don't find even the loveliest of assholes attractive unless they are connected with a pleasant personality, and it sounds like TGP shares my standards.

Consider it a bullet dodged, LW. And consider yourself wise for having kept out of firing range.

P.S.

Guys who insult you for not having sex with them are still roaming the halls of their high school in their heads, covered in acne and filled with rage and entitlement. Not attractive, no matter what they look like now.

@Matt from Denver: I think you missed my point.

Guys like you are obsessed with fidelity because you know no other woman on the planet would fuck you besides your poor wife, and you're insecure that your wife might catch onto that fact and want to fuck other men.

@25,

"I've discovered that "prude" is the favorite first insult of assholes when I don't want to have sex with them."

Word. Plus, "HEY, you think you know me, Bub?"

Never been sure why "prude" is such a drastic insult anyway. As character flaws go, prudishness is a pretty mild one. It also doesn't hurt anyone. In fact, the only person in the world my apparent "prudishness" affects is the asshole I just said "no" to.

@27 seandr, unless you have the balls to express that sentiment to the women you're fucking - that only ugly people are monogamous, and that no one could actually want to be - then your argument is moot. are you an honest asshole, or a lying pussy?

Very nice to hear of a man who is open to a variety of experiences but filters his participation through his principles. Well done, LW! You are getting blowback from the dude (and possibly your friends) because your adherence to your principles makes them feel guilty about their own lack of such principles. We all want to think we are a good guy, but we aren't all good guys, and we don't like those who remind us that we may not be.

@30 "...open to a variety of experiences but filters his participation through his principles..."

May I recommend this as a template for the twenty-first-century man?

I can't fault it English at all, it reads very naturally and informally, damn Europeans gotta speak more than one language! =).

* his*

@27, @29 - not that this queer's opinion is likely to impact on sendr's sex-life, or potential sex-partners, at all... but i find the potential specter of monogamy, or even the desire for said state, such a turn-off that i would rather not have sex. so yes, i personally would espouse that sentiment to the women i fuck, and the men i fuck, well before fucking them.

although i would put it like this: monogamy is the antithesis of affection, liking, and respect. it is, essentially, domestic abuse - it is living under duress. if you happen to only want to fuck this one person, that is also your personal choice. but it is your choice. please don't make it my problem, or expect me to be comfortable about it if you decide to only have sex with me....

and i still have offers. i'm sure sendr does too. not everybody wants the same thing.

Monogamy is abuse? That's non sequitur.

nah - it all depends on your cultural context, is the conclusion i've come to.
i think it's why so many of 'us' (cultural group) don't 'marry' - it's because the current western concept of 'marriage' violates so many of our basic assumptions about love and respect. lifelong vows = slavery. and why would you ever try to undermine the autonomy and self-determination of someone you claim to love??
...but like i said, i think it's cultural. if it works for you, that's fine. but don't mistake it for a universal.

i have no beef with anyone else's relationships or lack thereof. i get why some people would never want a monogamous relationship, and I respect the choice. just be fucking honest, and don't denigrate people whose relationships don't mirror yours.

@34: Yeah, it's not like there's an entire industry directed at misleading women for the express purpose of having sex with them.

TGP, you are a man of honor. I may be the not-so-attractive guy who would never find myself in your flattering situation, but only an asshole would have accepted the proposal.

Knowingly facilitating cheating is like poisoning the neighbors' pet: a sociopathic act that's of little consequence for you (it might even give you a thrill), but sure to cause terrible pain for them. I know that's a weird analogy, but it seems apt.

Cheaters are assholes, as are those who play a part in the cheating.

Some cultures—Hello, France?—are blasé about cheating, and consider it banal. It's a hold-over from Catholicism's heavy hand in molding their society. Not only were people considered basically evil, but humankind was powerless to correct itself. So you just accept your lot in this life, and hope for salvation in the next. With this worldview, you can live with a lot of asshole behavior without even bothering to cry foul. And you're free to be an asshole, too, as long as you confess before you die. Ugh.

I'm not saying the formerly Protestant north is free of cheating or general assholery, but those cultures tend to be less resigned to it—preferring to loudly object, and punish the offender. This, because their heritage allowed and even encouraged them to strive to create a heaven on Earth.

The Latin-European cultures also consider "prude" to be the ultimate insult. I guess this is a hold-over from the Roman admiration of the Greeks, which they tend to fetichise even today.

Your English wasn't perfect, TGP—I spotted only three mistakes—but it's better than most native speakers:

(1) "Some weekends ago I went to visit a friend to another city…" should be either "…in another city" or "Some weekends ago I went to another city to visit a friend…"

(2) Propose is not always a reflexive verb. While you propose to someone (asking for marriage), you can also just propose an idea or an offer. So "by the end of the night, they proposed a threesome" would be correct.

(3) "It was an excitement idea!" was the big give-away that this isn't your native language. Ideas can be exciting, but not excitement. (This makes me wonder whether you're actually French, and if so, what you think of the institutionalized cheating there.)

That's it. Three minor errors. You write well, and as I said, acted with honor.

@40:
Over-generalise much?
There's a difference between not seeing separation as the only possible reaction to cheating and being blasé about cheating?