I am a 23-year-old male who has been in a relationship with a
great woman for four years now. She is an amazing person, and we
oftentimes talk about marriage. The issue is this: I have a foot fetish
and she is fully aware of it. She doesn’t like the idea of me kissing
her feet or indulging my fetish in any way. We have sex quite often,
and I’ve always let it slide that she doesn’t want any part of my
fetish. I don’t know what to do, because I’m at a stage in my sexual
growth where I need to experience my fetish. I’m getting mixed advice
from different people and I just want a straight answer. The sex we
have is amazing, but I would enjoy it so much more if I could act on my
desires once in a while.
Sexually Frustrated Fetishist
Here’s a straight answer: Your amazing girlfriend is an amazingly
selfish lover, and I’m amazed that you’ve put up with her bullshit for
as long as you have. A foot fetish is not uncommon or outrageous; as
fetishes go, SFF, yours is the least taxing for a nonkinky partner.
It’s not like you’re into shit or choking or Christian side hugs. Any
amazing woman who truly loved you would regard indulging you as a
no-brainer.
Share time: I have a good friend who’s not kinky at all —
unless you count being gay — and he’s a runner who goes for long
runs every Saturday morning. When he gets home, he handcuffs his
boyfriend to a chair in his kitchen, duct-tapes one of his sweaty
sneakers over the boyfriend’s face, and leaves him there while he has
breakfast. My friend — who came to me for advice when his
boyfriend confessed his fetish — isn’t really into guys with
sneakers duct-taped to their faces. But it gets his lover off, and
isn’t that what lovers are for?
Your lover has had things — she’s had you — on her terms
for four years, SFF, which means you’re going to have to play the
breakup card. It’s the only leverage you have. Tell her that if she can
indulge your fetish — happily and regularly — and take some
pleasure in giving you pleasure, she might be “the one.” If she can’t
or won’t, she obviously isn’t. (Not that “the one” is anything other
than a destructive myth, but for the sake of winning this argument, go
ahead and use it.)
Finally, SFF, don’t let the girlfriend — or anyone else
— tell you that you’re threatening to end this relationship over
something trivial. Sexual fulfillment is important, particularly if
your relationship is exclusive. And the “triviality” of your kink cuts
both ways: If your kink is so trivial, why not just indulge you
then? And in a long-term relationship — or a marriage —
one partner’s sexual selfishness and another’s sexual frustration
rarely prove trivial over the long haul. They’re more often grounds for
divorce.
I am a 35-year-old partnered gay man, but I’ve been having an
online conversation with a married bisexual man that has become an
ongoing game of sexual dares. It’s a safe form of sexual adventurism
for both of us. None of our dares has involved sexual contact with
another person, but some of our dares have begun to involve other
people at the edges. For example, we’ve posted ads to Craigslist as
submissives and responded to some of the replies from dominant men.
None of these interactions with third parties will result in actual
contact. It feels a little like we are exploiting the “flakes” aspect
of Craigslist; i.e., it’s common to hear from someone a few times after
making contact on Craigslist and then never hear from them again. But
it also feels a little like we are using these folks. Is this expansion
of our game to involve other people ethical?
Concerned About Harming Craigslist Fellas
P.S. By the way, this letter is itself part of a dare. If you
publish it and include a dare in the published reply, I will have to
fulfill that dare.
The expansion of your game to Craigslist will annoy those guys on CL
who are looking for actual contact, CAHCF, but as those guys amount to
something less than 0.02 percent of the men trawling Craigslist at any
given moment, I wouldn’t worry about it. Everyone knows that CL is
overrun with flakes and game players and picture collectors; the odds
that the “dominant men” you’ve chatted with on CL are interested in
actual contact are pretty damn slim. (Guys interested in real-time BDSM
play are likelier to be lurking on Recon.com or in your local hardware store.) So
post at will.
P.S. I dare you to go to www.tinyurl.com/ye3otsh and take
the pledge.
I’m a straight guy in my late twenties. I have a girlfriend of
several years whom I live with and I love very much. I just read your
most recent column, in which you used the acronyms HND (honest
nonmonogamous dude) and CPOS (cheating piece of shit), and it struck a
nerve. I have never been an HND; I have in the past been a CPOS (though
not in this relationship). My girlfriend is lovely, supportive, and
generally GGG, and though the sex is good, I have a significantly
higher libido than she does and I would like to have a little more
variety in my sex life. I want to be an HND, but I don’t know how to
broach the subject with the girlfriend without ruining our
relationship. We are very open about our sex life and our relationship
in general, but I think this is probably a “next level” topic that may
not go over very well. How do I bring this up without screwing up our
relationship beyond repair?
Aspiring Honest Nonmonogamous Dude
Based on what you’ve learned about yourself in past relationships,
AHND — i.e., that you’re a CPOS waiting to happen — I would
encourage you to err on the side of screwing up your current
relationship with an honest conversation about your mismatched libidos
and your natural and normal desire for a little variety. Lies, damn
lies, and statistics all demonstrate that, in time, one or the other or
both of you will cheat. Better to toss that out there now, even at the
risk of calmly winding down this relationship before you revert to
form/CPOS, than to see the relationship explode after someone, most
likely you, winds up cheating.
And while we’re on the subject of cheating …
I suppose I’m obligated to say a few words about Tiger Woods. First,
let’s pretend that Elin Nordegren cheated on Tiger and that Tiger went
after Elin with a golf club. Would Elin be viewed as the sole
transgressor in the marriage then? Probably not. And second, daily
papers and cable-news outfits reacted to Tiger’s “transgressions” by
changing the names in the same “Why do powerful men cheat?” stories
they’ve been pimping since Bill Clinton blew a load on a White House
intern. For the millionth time: Men cheat for the same reasons women
cheat; i.e., because they’re bored or horny or unfulfilled or desperate
to see someone else naked for a change. People cheat because monogamy
isn’t natural and we are wired to cheat. That doesn’t make cheating
right, of course; people should honor their commitments, and
blah-de-nine-iron-blah. But we shouldn’t encourage people to make
commitments we all know they’re unlikely to keep. The end.
AUCTION NOTICE: Want to answer a question or two in an upcoming
column? I’m auctioning off a chance to give advice in this space to
raise money for some worthy charities. Go to www.tinyurl.com/SLauction for
details and to bid.
