First up, it turns out there is a study about that...

Me and my husband are both in our mid-20s and in an open marriage, although we haven't really been with anyone else until this recent hookup with a classmate of mine who's also gay, married, and about my age.

We met in college and became friends. Recently, he started flirting with me and suggesting that we should "hang out" together with our husbands. We did, and we all got along pretty well as friends, but as me and my husband are two very awkward introverts, we didn't do anything beyond casual hugs. Also... we weren't very physically attracted to my friend's husband. But we decided to keep it going just for experimenting and hopefully we could work it out. A few days later, all four of us hung out again and they wound up inviting us to their apartment. The four of us made out with each other, sucked each other's dicks, etc. It was awesome... in part. Me, my husband, and my friend got along really well. However, I was crazy anxious throughout the whole night—so much so I couldn't even have an erection—because I'm simply not attracted to my friend's husband. He's very nice but we just didn't connect in bed and I don't find him hot. So half of the time I was worrying that he would feel left out, worrying that he would notice that I wasn't interested in him, and being kinda disgusted for forcing myself to be with this person that I didn't want to be with. All of this would be pretty simple to solve if their agreement wasn't that they can only be with other people together. So I guess that having sex only with my friend isn't an option.

So, couple questions... were we wrong to hook up with them knowing that we might not like being with both of them? Is there a middle ground here where we can still fuck with my friend without, like, touching his husband in that way? Is there even a way of proposing this without being offensive? Or should we just stop seeing them?

Wanted A Threesome, Settled For A Foursome

I'm a bisexual mid-30s female who's been with the same guy for 14 years. Our relationship has been through a lot of ups and downs, with me intermittently getting crushes on other folks and wondering if I needed to go out and date other people (I was a late bloomer). I also intermittently struggled with anxiety and depression, and felt like I was leaning too much on him for support. I thought maybe I needed to develop the strength to be okay on my own. I was open with him about all this, and he was understandably not happy about it—he really wanted to be together. I brought up taking a break, but he was adamant that he didn't believe in breaks, and that just meant a break-up. Which was reasonable.

Anyway, I sought advice from a therapist, my family and friends: the therapist and my family all strongly thought that I should stay with him at least until my anxiety and depression got better and THEN decide whether or not to leave the relationship. (A couple friends thought otherwise, but I chose to trust the professional in this case.) I still felt really guilty about leaning on him if I wasn't sure if I wanted to be with him, so I left for a while and went back to my family. My family's abusive in some ways, though, with major anger issues, so I couldn't lean on them, and I was so deep in my anxiety that I had a hard time reaching out to friends for support. And my therapist kept saying to go back to him, because he was my main support system and I really needed support to get better. I was at the end of my rope, so I did.

So I was innocently browsing the personal ads on Craigslist and saw one from a dude who was looking to try "saline balls" for the first time. Having no idea what this was, I googled it. Even worse, I google-imaged it. I pride myself on being unshockable, but I was completely and utterly mortified at what I saw. With that said, my copious internet searching failed to yield the answers to the basic/most important questions regarding saline balls: (1) What is the procedure/process for salining one's balls? (2) What about it turns on the saliner/salinee? (3) How long does the effect last? (4) Can it be (god forbid) irreversible?

Completely Utterly Mortified

I'm a happily married man. I've been with my partner for eight years and we've had a "DADT" open relationship since the beginning. We're sexually compatible, each of us has our own kinks, we're both GGG, and I've never actually played the open relationship card. Recently I started chatting with a guy online who shares some of my kinky interests and I really like the idea of fooling around with someone whose brain is kink-wired like mine. My question is, if the intention is just to chat and maybe hook up at some point, should I disclose to this guy that I'm married? I feel a little weird about potentially deceiving him if he thinks I'm single—and I don't know why he'd assume otherwise at this point—but at the same time if we're keeping everything casual and I'm up front about what I'm looking for—just a casual hookup, nothing more—is it even necessary to bring it up? I think I'd enjoy seeing this guy (and if I flatter myself, I think he'd enjoy seeing me) and I don't want to turn him off at the outset or end something that could be really fun before it even starts. What are my obligations in this situation?

Dudes And Dick Tricks

First up, a woman who wasn't having much luck with buttsex—and wasn't experiencing any pleasure—wrote back with an update:

Thank you for years of great advice which has helped me live my best, queer, poly life. I’m 33, married to my husband and partnered with two incredible women. All my partners are also happily partnered with others. We’re mostly out to all the people in our lives, but not my parents. They’re lovely people, but very conservative when it comes to sex and relationships. They truly believe my live-in girlfriend is just a good friend. When I once mentioned polyamory to them, they told me if I ever did anything like that, they wouldn’t want to know and couldn’t handle it. So I’ve respected that and hid my poly life from them.

But now I’m pregnant. And I’m not going to hide my relationships from my kid or expect my kid to lie to my parents for me. I’m also sad about and tired of misrepresenting the most important relationships in my life to my parents, two people I love dearly. It’s clearly time to come clean but I have no idea where to start. Do I just rip off the bandaid and do it? Should try to gently prepare them and slowly divulge things over several conversations? And how do I handle it when they inevitably decide they’ve failed as parents and I’m going to hell for living in sin. Can you help?

Poly And Pregnant

I'm a 23-year-old bi lady, who's currently working to get the certifications for her chosen career while living at home with her parents. About a month ago, I started a fwb situation with a good friend who had his marriage of several years end in divorce a few months ago. We've both been open and communicative about boundaries and what we want out of it. It's been a lot of fun and some much needed stress relief for us both. The casual sex isn't a problem for me. My mother's reaction to it, on the other hand...

I hadn't told my mom about it because she was traveling and out of the house when it all started. But when she's home, she likes me to tell her where I'm going when I leave the house (which I won't argue with; it is her house). This weekend I told her I was heading to my partner's place and when she asked if we were dating, I honestly told her it was a FWB thing. She was upset, and scared for me, immediately calling my partner "flaky" and assuming that there was emotional cheating on our parts while he was still married, (there wasn't). She wanted to know why I wasn't dating "like a normal person."

I don't want to be dishonest with her, and even if I did... I'm a terrible liar, and I'm not ashamed of what I'm doing. What do you think I should/could do to best facilitate her coming to (neutral) terms with this aspect of my life? I know I can't change her opinion or her feelings on the matter, but I just don't want her to be scared for me, and there's a lot I'm willing to do to help with that, short of dissolving my FWB situation altogether.

Harping On My Experiences

Yeah, so I'm a 17-year-old lesbian and decided to be big and brave and come out to my parents. I did the whole "born this way," "please accept me," etc., that I'm sure everyone tries.

Things got pretty damn quiet, which was actually a good reaction in my books because my parents are kind of religious and the words "conversion therapy" were once-upon-a-time raised at the table as a good thing to have available to gay kids, so... I thought things went kind of well considering.

And then, guess what? My parents decided to have a nice sit down with me tonight and beside them is my Dad's laptop and on it is one of your videos on YouTube, which I though was pretty darn weird considering my parents usual tastes in entertainment. What played then was your video on women's sexuality with that lovely quote about your five lesbian friends—three of whom are now married to men. Bravo Dan, way to throw a sister under the bus. Because now my parents are taking your word as a fellow homosexual that there is no such thing as a woman being totally gay and that with a bit of therapy I can drag myself back to "straight."

Newsflash, Dan: I've never been into dudes. Like, ever. Always known it, from back when I prayed to God when playing spin the bottle it would land on my girl friends and not one of the guys. So some girls might like to swap and change, but others don't.

Not that I think you'll ever read this, but on the small off chance that you do, well, YOU SUCK. Like, so much. Think about what you say before you say it next time! I get that it obviously wasn't what you were trying to say. You saying that lesbians can change what gender they like is just made of fail.

Pissed Off Dyke

My response—and an epic email exchange with POD—after the jump.

I’m in my late 20s and I've been dating an amazing guy for six months. We have amazing adventures together and incredible sex. He has awakened a part of me that I thought I had lost a long time ago. He makes me feel safe and appreciated like I have never experienced before. I don’t have a great track record with men and I feel so lucky to have found a man who I feel so supported by and loved completely.

Here is my problem: We met through a mutual friend who, at the time of our meeting, I had not had sexual contact with. He was with someone else at the time and we had spent some time together as just platonic friends, which we are to this day. He is a great guy and I consider him a close friend. My boyfriend and I hooked up once or twice before things got serious. We both have trust issues and it took a month or so before we started to see each other seriously. After the first couple times I hooked up with the man who [would become] my boyfriend... I ended up partying with our mutual friend and we had sex. We talked about it later and agreed that it wasn’t a good decision on both our parts. We remain good friends and neither of us has told anyone about it.

I feel guilty for not telling my boyfriend about hooking up with our mutual friend. It was before either of us had realized that we wanted to take things further. I don’t think our friend will say anything to him—he loves my boyfriend like a brother and is really happy we found each other—but it eats at me. Whenever my boyfriend gets upset and withdrawn, I imagine it’s because he found out. I know it was before we got serious and that it shouldn’t be a huge deal, but it haunts me. Keeping this secret is making me feel like a bad person and a bad partner.

Do you have any advice on how to deal with this situation if it ever comes out or how to deal with the guilt? Logically, I know it isn’t a huge deal, we weren’t serious at the time, and if a friend of mine told me this story I would tell them not to worry and just deal with it if it comes to light. I just care so deeply for this person and I would never want to hurt him.

Woman With A Secret

JOE NEWTON

Specified Open Relationship Early

First, some advice for "poly folk":

I'm a 28-year-old bisexual women. I just found out that my boyfriend of a year and a half cheated on me. I suspected for a couple days after finding a strand of hair that was neither his or mine in his bed. I asked him about it and he confessed to inviting a girl over and watching TV in his bed even though he has a perfectly comfortable couch downstairs. He claimed that they did not have sex even though she wanted to. I don't really believe him and either way he crossed a line.

He has a history of cheating, but for some reason I believed him when he said that he had grown and no longer wanted to be that person. In the past, I've mentioned exploring an open relationship. He said that he didn't believe that a strong relationship could be open and didn't want to jeopardize what we had. I brought it up a few more times and he said that he was willing to try it if it was something that I wanted. Oh, and the sex is really good. We share the same kinks and his dick game is strong.

My question: Should I just break up with him or would it be a bad idea to try an open relationship at this point? Could an open relationship come out of infidelity without making things worse? I doubt I could ever trust him to be monogamous, so that's just not an option. But maybe if I could still get that good D and look for something more emotionally fulfilling elsewhere... maybe it could work out for the both of us? I've also never dated a woman and would really like the opportunity to explore that part of me.

I do love him, which is probably clouding my judgment. That and the sex. He claims that he cheated because he was scared we were
"in a very good place" and sabotage was his response. I think he loves me as much as he is capable of, it's just not enough for me to want to continue to try a monogamous relationship with him.

Too Hard To Say Goodbye

I've been seeing a guy for a little over a year and all was going very well. We had a good relationship, good sex and good friendship; a nice situation. A couple months ago he told me that he wants to be my slave. I surprised myself by saying okay. I got into it right away. It's very hot, the sex is great, and life has never been more exciting. All is well, sort of.

The problem is that I don't feel as much friendship in our relationship any more. Being in control and making all decisions is not always the easiest thing for me to do, but I learned that he likes serving me and acting on my commands. A lot. The sex is hot, hot, hot. In other areas though, I feel like I need freindship from someone else, now.

I'm not sure what is happening because I still like him a lot, but am losing my sense of our connection as partners. I sometimes feel as though aspects of my needs are not being met and that it is somewhat my fault for agreeing to be his master. Am I doomed to a lifestyle of an open relationship with a slave at home while I have dates and meetings with friends outside the home?

A Reluctant Master