This week's Savage Love Letters of the Day: what to expect when you're expecting to run into a coworker who accidentally flashed her boobs in a Zoom meeting; at what temperature should one keep one's tits when one is crushing on someone during a pandemic; how guilty should a guy feel about getting spanked behind his husband's back; and just how annoyed is a wife allowed to feel about the "maintenance spankings" her husband needs. And, of course, this week's Savage Love and this week's Savage Lovecast.

First up, regarding SPANK...

I could really use your insight on the concept of maintenance spanking. In the last week or so, my husband has wanted to explore having a female-led relationship. So while he has always done the cooking, and is a great co-parent two our two children, he's now taking on the majority of the rest of the housework. I'm all in favor of this, as he hasn't always done half of the housework, and our new arrangement has allowed me to be a more present parent and pursue more creative pursuits. In addition to parenting, I am now managing our finances, which I don't mind doing. He has recently wanted to try "maintenance spanking" as a way to reinforce his submission. We've done spanking as a part of sex for awhile, both with my hand and with a flogger, and we enjoy other Dom/sub activities like pegging. But I honestly don't "get" the spanking thing apart from sex. When should it happen? When is it supposed to end? Why are we doing this? We tried last night and decided on a certain number of lashes. He asked afterward if I felt powerful and the answer was NO. I didn't get anything from this and I don't understand it. The whole thing felt very ceremonial and I am not sure what to do with that level of formality. Anything I can do to get in this headspace? Am I thinking about this wrong?

Thanks For Your Help

I love traveling around the country and bringing Savage Love Live to theaters near you—it's always a blast—but we're obviously not able do that right now. So we're doing the next best thing: our first-ever livestream show! The Savage Love Livestream goes down—goes up? goes live?—on June 4th at 7 PM PST. You can send me questions beforehand at livestream@savagelovecast.com, or you can ask questions live during the show. I’ll do my best to answer as many as I can only this time I’ll be answering them on Zoom in your living room. Or your bedroom. Or your bathroom. Or your dungeon. It's up to you! And proceeds from this show are being donated to Northwest Harvest, an organization that supports a network of food banks here in Washington state. Nancy and I are hoping to raise a bunch of money to help hungry people in Seattle and across the state. We had a practice session today and I think going to be fun! So join me, Nancy, the tech-savvy/at-risk youth and the Infant of Prague for our first livestream show! Get your tickets here! Again, all proceeds go to Northwest Harvest and I'm going to match the first $2K we raise and double your donation to this great organization!

I'm a gay man married to a wonderful man. For most of our 12-year relationship, we've had a boring sexual script that is all about him getting blown. He just doesn't seem interested in much else, and although we've talked about it over the years, nothing has really changed. He is selfish in bed. He's a wonderful husband otherwise, and I love him deeply. Recently, he was out of town, and in a weak moment, I ended up meeting an experienced spanking Dom. We've met several times, and I'm counting the days until he whales on my butt again. Not in my wildest imagination could or would my husband EVER do something like this with me. He just doesn't have it in him. I am more sexually fulfilled than I have been in a decade. I'm also lying and cheating. I'm deeply torn. If I tell my husband, my guess is that he won't take it well. It could cause our marriage to unravel. If I keep lying, I bear the moral burden of the lie, and he could find out anyway.

Still Professing A Normal Kink

JOE NEWTON

Feeling Resentful About Uncoupling Dilemma

Due to sheltering at home for over two months I am isolated and sad. Shocking, I know. I live alone and was laid off in March so I've had nothing but time as of late. Enter Online Crush Dude, a friend I recently met online who lives far away and with whom I've been chatting quite a bit in a very intimate way. We have a great connection, vibe perfectly, and trade banter on every subject from preferred porn genres to movies.

I enjoy his company a lot and after finding out that our sexual preferences sync up perfectly it's been difficult to fantasize about anything other than him. That combined with my isolation has developed this into a major crush and I'm honestly wondering if I should pursue it or ride it out till I have some semblance of a life again and judge this/him based on the merits then. Do I mention this to him, ask him if he's feeling the same, and pursue this sexy bastard? Or do I chill my fucking tits and see if it's just quarantine cabin fever talking? Thanks so much for your work, this bi bitch appreciates it deeply.

Breaking Into Totally Complete Heat

Here's a question for our coronavirus times that isn't, "Can we hook up yet?" With my whole company working from home, I was recently in a small group Zoom meeting when one coworker, unaware that her camera was on, moved her phone/tablet/laptop and in the process panned across her bare chest. One of the other participants told her that her camera was on, and she immediately switched it off, with a lot of flustered apologies and oh-my-Gods. After a minute or two, the meeting went on as if nothing had happened.

The coworker in question is someone I respect and like as both a colleague and a person. I'm a gay guy and fairly worldly, so seeing bare breasts doesn't give me an adolescent thrill or the pearl-clutching wobblies. But because this is someone I work with, I feel like this may be an elephant in the room as we go forward. I'd hate for her to be thinking that I'm snickering behind her back or thinking badly of her when really my heart goes out to her. Is there a way to address this and let my colleague know that I'm supportive and sympathetic without bringing what has to be a horribly embarrassing experience back to the forefront? Or should this just remain a "let us never speak of this again" situation?

This Is Terribly Squicky

First up, my response to FASH...

I'm a late 30s cis female and I've been dating a man in his early 50s for about nine months. Last December, about four months into our relationship, something happened and I can't figure out if I am blowing it out of proportion. Basically, he got wasted and I made the poor decision to spend the night with him instead of politely excusing myself and going home. When we got in bed he started initiating sexual contact, something I would normally invite. I didn't want to have sex with him that night though because he was drunk and he had been rude and pushy earlier in the evening. Anyway, he started kissing me and touching me and instead of just saying "no" I tried to show my lack of enthusiasm through body language. Basically, I just didn't reciprocate. It got to a point that he was kind of laying partly on me and kissing me in this way that really kind of grossed me out. I had an urge to tell him to leave me alone. I kind of wanted to scream because he was grossing me out. I wanted to get up and leave but it was late and I didn't have my car with me. Eventually he stopped trying, rolled over, and fell asleep. The next morning when we got up he was upset that I "rejected" him. To smooth things over I basically lied and told him I didn't mean to reject him and I was just tired and wanted to sleep. I even apologized that I made him feel bad.

Ever since then things have gone downhill. I never directly addressed my feelings about that night and he didn't bring it up until today, actually, when I wrote him about it. I don't think he remembers it very clearly because he was drunk. I haven't seen him since the virus struck, but we are not officially broken up yet. I started treating him worse after the thing happened in December and I think I maybe should have left him after that night. I guess my ultimate question for you is whether or not what happened is "a big deal." I need to know if I am making a big deal out of something insignificant. Was it just miscommunication? We normally had sex when we slept in the same bed and perhaps he was just acting as he normally would? Can you please tell me if this behavior was not a big deal and perhaps forgivable?

Heavy And Rude Sex Happenings

The Background: My wife and I have been together for six years. When we first met, via Tinder and Match simultaneously, we were in a difficult place with past relationships and we connected over shared pain and a desire for stability. She had a child shortly before we had met and the dad is a deadbeat who put her through the ringer. He would show up at her apartment drunk and promise her the world, then not show up for days. I had a son six years before we met and had been through my own trials (literally) and needed to feel safe and stable. The mother of my child is very unstable and a master of manipulation, so I was guarded but hopeful for something better and without drama.

I have an amazing and supportive husband. We've been together fourteen years and have a blended Brady Bunch of five kiddos. We've been active in the swinger community whenever we get the chance for the last ten years. We have mismatched libidos, but I'm sure part of that has to do with us having a significant age gap. (He's older, I'm younger.) I cheated on him once with a married mutual friend (we will call him "Bob"), admitted it, and the end result of that convo was my hubs agreeing that I could have other partners to help meet my needs. He even agreed to me still seeing Bob, but on the condition that it was "DADT." See, Dan? My husband is amazing and I just about worship the man.

Here's the deal with Bob though, for the last year I've been "hyper-aware" of him whenever he's in the same room as me. I get slightly breathless, my skin tingles, and every interaction between us is charged. He will just smile at me from across the room and I get instantly wet. As a swinger, I've been with tons of other men, I've had threesomes, been to a few orgies. We are still friends with most of the people we've played with and I've never had this strange, uncomfortable feeling as I've had around Bob. His wife finds it pretty hot and has given the okay for us to play—we even had a threesome (me, Bob, his wife), but they are closet swingers and twice she's gotten upset when non-swinger friends have noticed the electricity passing between Bob and I.

Dan, I don't like these sensations and I'm not in love with Bob—so why these intense feelings? I will go several months without being around him, rarely think about him, and think that the feeling is bound to have gone away... and nope, it's just as intense when I'm around him again and I feel so out of control. Afterwards I always feel extremely guilty, sick to my stomach over it, and it's worse when we actually do have sex. Why? I'm not a CPOS! There's permission from both spouses! I wish I could talk to my husband about it, but there's his request of DADT. Please Dan, shed some light on this for me!

No Clever Acronym

What's the etiquette for having sex when you're a guest in another person's house? Friends spent the night and shared some passion. I don't have a problem with this. However, this was period-sex, and I was left with bloody, sex-stained sheets. Am I wrong to be annoyed? Can I ask them to replace the sheets?

Hostess With The Menses

JOE NEWTON

Desperate For Answers