I'm on hiatus while working on a manuscript for a new book. In the meantime, please enjoy these classic Savage Love letters pulled from previous columns. I will be back when the book is finished. —Dan

Originally published December 7, 2006:

My boyfriend and I are currently doing the long-distance thing, as I'm finishing up some schooling. About two months ago during some dirty phone talk he said he'd been masturbating while thinking about me fucking another man while he watches.

This was unexpected. In the past, I screwed around on boyfriends. He knows this, but I thought he also understood that I only want to be with him and that I am not interested in additional male partners. He brings this scenario up whenever we're having phone sex or we're together and he's aroused. When he's not hard, he says that the thought of my being with another guy is gut wrenching and awful, but when he is aroused, he tells me that he really wants me to do this.

I'm confused. Previously, partners have brought up unexpected stuff and I've rolled with it (bondage, strap-ons), but they were able to talk about it later—what it was about, why it was a turn-on. My current man gets upset when I try to talk about it outside of sex. Are you familiar with this sort of drastic, disgusted, after-the-fact denial?

Unsure About The Cuckold Thing

My response after the jump...

Yeah, UATCT, I'm familiar with drastic, disgusted, after-the-fact denial. When I first came out—back before I knew better—I fucked a handful of "straight" guys. And let me tell you, UATCT, the shit that comes out of the mouths of closet cases just before and all during sex will turn your hair white and/or make your dick hard. No one begs to be fucked quite as sincerely, graphically, or desperately as some frat boy who hasn't yet reconciled himself to being gay.

But, oh, the moment a closet case gets what he came for—the moment he comes—his tone changes dramatically. Not only does he stop begging to be fucked, he will deny he ever wanted to be fucked in the first place. The truly messed up ones would even deny that they had been fucked at all, never mind the evidence all over their abs. And any attempts to address their absurd denials—"What do you mean you've never been fucked? My cock is still in your ass..."—were a waste of breath.

Like those "straight" frat boys I fucked back at the University of Illinois, your boyfriend wants it. He wants you to fuck around with another guy, preferably in front of him. But he doesn't wanna want it and wishes it would go away. And it does go away, just like magic, immediately after he comes. Unfortunately, it comes roaring back as soon as he's horny again.

Where did his cuckold fetish come from? Like many fetishes, his cuckold thing is most likely a subconscious, erotic response to a sexually charged fear. While most of us learn to live with and occasionally conquer our fears without eroticizing them, a number of us respond to sexual fears or traumas by incorporating them into our erotic imaginations. Think of women—hip, together, progressive, feminist women—who act out rape fantasies; think of homos—hip, together, out homos—who dress up like soldiers, cops, firemen, and other stereotypically violent homophobes.

Women fear rape, yet some develop a fetish for it. Gay men fear violent homophobes, yet some dress up like violent homophobes. And what do many straight men fear? Being cheated on, of course, and dealing with that particular brand of sexual humiliation. Your boyfriend has, consciously or subconsciously, eroticized his fears around your cheating on him—and that's not an entirely irrational fear, UATCT, considering your past.

Cuckolding may seem like some sort of brand-new fetish, but it's not. But we are hearing more about it now thanks to the internet. For while straight women have long been free to share their rape fantasies with their male partners, and gay men can share their homophobe fantasies with each other, married straight men into cuckolding have a harder time of it. A rape fantasy, however charged, or a homophobe fantasy, however comical, is easy to realize. ("Hold me down." "Wear this uniform.") A cuckold fantasy, on the other hand, is more complicated. Not only does the wannabe cuckold have to talk his partner into it, he also has to find a willing third. It wasn't until sites like www.cuckoldplace.com and www.adultcommunitiesonline.com/ourhotwives (now defunct) came along that cuckold fetishists—or "cucks," as some insist on calling themselves—were able to create a community of sorts, put a name to their desires, and swap tips on broaching the subject with their wives and girlfriends.