BLOGTOWN

Joe Newton

I’ve been living with my boyfriend for a year. We met on FetLife and I was honest about being in an open relationship (at the time) and seeking a sexual connection over a relationship. But one nut after another and pretty soon we were professing our love for each other and he shared that he wanted to be the father of my children. However, right before he moved in I found out he was still texting other women despite asking me not to text, sext, or have sex with any other men. He also regularly "yucks my yum" and makes fun of the types of porn I watch and calls it "gross" (my thing for cuckolding being his main target) and he also insists men can't be friends with women yet he's still friends with women he's had sex with. He hides the fact he is masturbating from me but expects to participate in all my masturbation sessions. He claims we have no sexual secrets but I snooped and learned he was looking at porn with titles like "TS," "sissy," "gay," and "BBW Black." It makes me feel small because of the nagging feeling I may not be his cup of tea since he hides these other interests from me while not allowing me to hide nothing from him. I also worry that his "affection" for my black BBW ass may be no different than his objectification of trans women. He says he doesn't want to "burden" me with "rapey" sex play but I am open to all kinds of sex, not just the softcore-porn-type kind—so long as he doesn't start by rubbing my boobs like they're doorknobs. I am at my wits end. I already emailed an LGBTQIA+ friendly couples counselor because we are both scared the relationship will end. But I can't keep turning a blind eye to his half-truths, double standards, and hypocrisy.

Feeling Extremely Tense

Joe Newton

I had a stroke a year ago. The woman I was dating at the time stepped away. I have no hard feelings but I long for intimacy again. I am profoundly grateful that I don't have any major outward injuries from the stroke, but my stamina is still very low and might always be. That makes me self-conscious and insecure about sex. Would it be "over-sharing" if I told someone about my stroke before we go to bed for the first time? It seems like it will kill the mood and almost certainly make things less fun. Am I obligated to share this information?

Outwardly Okay Privately Struggling

You're not obligated to share this kind of health information before going to bed with someone for the first time, OOPS, but you might wanna share it. At the root of your worries about post-stroke stamina is a fear of falling short of a new partner's expectations—expectations shaped by assumptions a new partner might have made about your stamina based on your overall appearance of good health. Resetting your partner's expectations will take the pressure off—indeed, if you tell a new partner you recently had a stroke, OOPS, you'll most likely exceed her (reset) expectations. And that could give your sexual self-confidence a welcome boost.

I'm a recently separated 42-year-old straight male. I'm internet dating for the first time, and I met an awesome girl who makes me laugh, makes me playlists on Spotify, and is just generally amazing. Of course there's a glitch: I'm not attracted to her. I tried but I think the romantic relationship needs to end. She has mentioned several times in the last couple of months that I treat her better than anybody she's ever dated. (That blows my mind—apparently cooking dinner, occasional flowers, and returning texts puts me head and shoulders above everyone else?) My question: How do you break that kind of news to someone without looking like an asshole?

Anxiously Hesitating Over Looming End

Joe Newton

I need your advice. My partner of 27 years has been sleeping with my best friend. This has been going on for a year and a half. As far as I knew, we had a monogamous relationship, even if things had gotten stale between us in recent years. And my best friend is everything to me. I confide in him for a lot, including advice on my relationship. We spoke recently about how my partner wasn't interested in sex. He looked me straight in the eye as he said how his partner wasn't interested in sex either. Little did I know that he was doing my partner. What is weird is that my friend isn't even close to my partner's "type."

My friend, however, has turned into an absolute whore in recent years. His partner knows nothing about it. I feel so betrayed by them both. I am gutted. I also fear being alone. I am 56 years old. The four of us did a lot together—Thanksgiving, Christmas, dinners, brunch, everything. I don't see how we can continue now. What should I do?

Going Under Thanks To Extreme Deceit

Joe Newton

I'm a European heterosexual girl and reading your column from afar has been a good way for me to better know the sex world! I am wondering if you have advice for me about a "faster" way to do blowjobs. Or rather a way to make my boyfriend come faster from them. I like doing them but after some time my mouth begins to hurt and I'd like him to finish. My partner is "slower" to come than other men I've been with. During intercourse sex I don't mind. I usually come first but is not a problem to wait for him to finish. But during oral sex, it is harder to wait. Sometimes I say no to giving him a blowjob because I know the effort it will take. I don't want to talk with him about this because I don't want to make him self-conscious. I know how good it is to receive oral sex without thinking about having to rush my own orgasm and I don't want to make him feel rushed. In the years of our relationship I haven't found a trick that gives me the power of to make it faster. I need some button to push. Maybe you have some tips for me?

Sex Tips Inducing Faster Finish Easing Discomfort

Joe Newton

I'm someone who does gay porn for a living. How do people who do gay porn meet someone who doesn’t just sexualize or fetishize them? I can’t eat, sleep, and breathe my work constantly but the guys I meet want me to live out the “porn persona” version of myself all the time. How does someone who does porn know who you can be yourself with?

Aiden Ward

@aidenxxxward

"Living with two identities is definitely a balancing act," said Devin Franco, an award-winning gay porn performer. "Being in porn means juggling the 'real world' person I actually am—a person who has to navigate rent, healthcare, bills, and a social life—and a porn star alter ego. And these days our porn alter egos don't just have to perform. We also have to do a lot of our own shooting and our own PR while maintaining our images. It's a lot. And reality always comes knocking no matter how much fun you're having. The bills always come due."

Franco's first bit of advice is to remember that you are not your alter ego.

Joe Newton

You’ve said that everyone is entitled to a “zone of erotic autonomy.” I was wondering if you thought that "zone" extends to sending thousands of dollars to a "FinDom." I'm a 33-year-old straight woman and I love my husband and we have a great (or so I thought) sex life. He's very dominant and controlling in bed and I'm very submissive and I thought we were well-matched sexually. So it was a shock for more than one reason when I stumbled over evidence that he's been sending money to a female sex worker who calls herself a FinDom. This has been going on for nearly three years! It seems clear from their messages (I have read them all) that they've never met in person (she clearly states that she never meets in person with her subs) but she sends him degrading personalized videos after he sends her money roughly once every other month. The amounts are small but they add up. We are more than comfortable so the issue isn't the money. And while my husband has never complained about what I spend on a personal trainer or my hair or body treatments (admittedly a lot), this is obviously different because he's masturbating over these videos. I don't really want to degrade him and I obviously couldn't dominate him financially as our finances are shared. My husband says he doesn't want to be degraded by me but he was nevertheless willing to pay a complete stranger to heap insults on him?!? I don't understand. I thought we had a great sexual connection. I also thought I knew who he was erotically. I'm confused and don't know what to do.

Feeling Insecure Necessarily, Doubts About Marriage Now

Joe Newton

I have a quick question about bisexuality. What if one has a preference for dating straight individuals? As a straight woman, I am only interested in dating straight men. Is that some kind of phobia? Or is it okay for that to be a preference? I've always wanted to ask someone this but I'm afraid of being thought of as having a phobia.

Nervously Asking Dan Something

Joe Newton

I'm a cis bi guy in my 40s who doesn't have a lot of experience with other men. I'm happily married to a wonderful woman who knows I'm bi, and while we're presently monogamous, we've talked about opening things up in the future. If that happens, I'd like to casually hook up with a guy once in a while, but I'm a little anxious about gay hookup culture.

1. Will a lot of guys dismiss me for being bi or married? I assume biphobia is more of an issue when looking for a relationship, rather than a hookup, but I dunno.

2. If I meet a guy and we're going to fuck, is it weird to bring up condoms? I know: I shouldn't be afraid to ask to use a condom, and if someone can't respect that, I shouldn't fuck him. I'm not and I won't. But will most guys be a little surprised, especially with PrEP these days?

3. On that note, should I ask my doctor about PrEP when all I want is a very occasional fuck (maybe a few times a year) with someone I've vetted and trust about their HIV-negative or undetectable status? I want to be safe, but I don't want to put superfluous meds in my body.

4. Is the "top shortage" I've read about a few times a real thing? Are a lot of guys strictly tops or bottoms?

5. And is there anything else I should know before hopping on the apps?

Wondering About Navigating New Arenas Before Indulging

Joe Newton

I’m a female in my late twenties. I broke up with a toxic ex about a year ago and I’ve been walking around (my house!) thinking I was over it. I never missed him and rarely thought about him. A brief backstory: In the final months of us living together, we started having more discussions about children and making lifelong commitment. He told me he wanted both, yet at this exact time his moderate depression became more severe and he refused to get help. I tolerated his cruel behavior because I knew how badly he was hurting. This ranged from icing me out to berating me and demanding I leave the home that we shared—MY HOUSE—citing his need for “alone” time. One time he demanded I get up and leave in the middle of the night and go to a friend’s house! It’s worth noting the sex was mediocre at best, which I chalked it up to him being a decade older. My self-esteem suffered. I finally left.

Fast forward to now. I find out he’s been dating a man. I can barely cope with the anger I feel about this. I feel like a casualty of his shame. We have progressive friends! His sister has dated women! His parents are accepting! None of the reasons you list as appropriate ones for staying closeted apply to him, Dan! His inability to accept himself caused me the most severe emotional trauma of my life and I just feel enraged. I logically know this is not about me. It’s about him. So why does this retroactively bother me so much? Part of me wants to say something to him but I’m not sure that would make me feel better. I’d be very appreciative of any guidance you may have. Not sure what to think.

Bitterly Enraged And Really Distressed

Joe Newton

I’m a 29-year-old straight male. I’ve been with my 25-year-old partner for six years. I love her and think that we are perfect for each other. We have all the things that make existing with someone wonderful. But about two years into our relationship I had a two-week-long affair while I was out of the country. I fucked up. I came clean to my partner and we’ve done our best to work through this over the last four years, but it has obviously caused some trust issues between us. I’ve never cheated it again and I try every day to work through these issues I caused in our relationship.

There’s also been two recent instances of me breaking her trust. On a particularly stressful day I was caught sneaking a cigarette—the sneaking part is the issue—and on another occasion I did drugs in our communal back garden with a friend after she had gone to bed. I owned up to both straight away. I view both of these as being a symptom of the lockdown/pandemic prompting me to break with my “normal” behavior. But partner is no longer comfortable allowing me to have the freedom to go out with my friends and partake in drugs without her express permission, which she already said she’s unlikely to grant me. The other element to this is, we want kids in three years. We’ve agreed that I will fully abstain from all drugs after we become parents.

My problem is that I trapped between a desire to meet the wants of my partner while also maintaining a degree of autonomy. When we discuss these matters—which we’ve been doing frequently lately—her argument boils down to this: “You did a bad thing, you need to make concessions so that I feel safe, you having to seek my permission makes me feel safe.” It’s coming to loggerheads and I don’t know if I’m the unreasonable one here, especially since I’m arguing for the freedom to do an illegal drug. I would appreciate your external, outside, drug-positive perspective in this.

Don’t Really Understand Girlfriends Sentiment

Joe Newton

I've been with my boyfriend for 2.5 years and we have a great relationship—or so I thought. Last week, I snooped on my boyfriend's browser history and I don't know what to do with what I found. I'm a longtime reader and Savage Lovecast listener SO I KNOW WHAT I DID WAS WRONG. I believe my actions were driven by 1. lingering trust issues (a while ago, I found out my boyfriend had been looking at Tinder since we'd been together, though I don't believe he ever messaged or intended to meet anyone) and 2. my general anxiety/depression, which seems particularly high one year into the pandemic. Now, to what I found: my boyfriend has been looking at random women on Facebook—not people he's friends with, or people in his immediate network, so far as I know. And then he clears his activity log. What do you think this means? Where is he finding these names/women? Is he using these pictures to masturbate? Should I raise the issue with him or just feel shitty about invading his privacy? He gives me no other reason to not trust him, I should say, and he seems like a pretty open book. (Everyone in my life who knows him agrees.) However, I can't shake the fear/paranoia that he's living a double life and I don't want to be blindsided. I would appreciate your insight.

Sincerely Nervous Over Online Pattern

Joe Newton

I want to thank everyone who attended our third Savage Love Livestream last Saturday night. Mistress Matisse was our very special guest and we tackled a lot of questions about BDSM over a very lively ninety minutes. We didn’t get to every question—there were so many—but I will now, as promised, power through as many livestream leftovers as I can in this week’s column…

You say people need to be in “good working order” to be in a relationship. What if you will never be in “good working order” because you cope with a mental health condition?

Having a mental health condition isn’t proof a person isn’t or can’t be in good working order; likewise, not having a mental health condition isn’t proof a person is in good working order. I mean, we all know people without mental health conditions who are walking disasters. Now someone with a mental health condition who refuses to get help or to stay on their meds might not be in good enough working order to be in or sustain a relationship. But taking care of ourselves is one of the most important ways we demonstrate that we are, in actual fact, in good enough working order to fuck, date, or marry. Or all three. So far from proving you’re not fit to be in a relationship, having a mental health condition that you’re doing something about—having one or more that you’re actively coping with—is evidence you are good working order.

Joe Newton

A male friend—not my best friend but a close one—told me his wife was really attracted to me, another male, and asked if I was attracted to her. His wife is an incredibly hot woman and I thought it was a trick question. I read your column and listen to the Savage Lovecast, Dan, so I know there are guys out there who want other men to sleep with their wives, of course, but I didn’t want to risk offending this friend by saying “FUCK YEAH” too quickly. After he convinced me it wasn’t a trick, I told him that of course I wanted to have sex with his wife. She’s incredibly beautiful and a really great person. I told him was that I not at the least bit bisexual and not into MMF threesomes, and he told me he wouldn’t even be there. He just wanted to hear all the details later—and hear them from me, not her.

I’ve slept with his wife four times since, and the sex we’ve been having is phenomenal for both of us. But the talks I have afterwards with my friend make me uncomfortable. We’ve gotten on the phone later in the day or the next day and I give him the details and insult him a little, which he likes, and honestly none of that is the problem. What makes me uncomfortable is that I can hear him beating off during these phone calls, which makes me feel like I’m having phone sex with a guy. I’m not comfortable with this and I feel like our friendship has become sexualized in a way that just feels unnatural for me. The one time we met in person to talk after I fucked his wife he was visibly aroused throughout our entire conversation. I would like to keep fucking my friend’s wife, and she wants to keep fucking me, but I don’t want to talk with my friend about it afterwards. Shouldn’t it be enough for him to just know I’m fucking her?

Distressed Aussie Chafes Under Cringe Kink

P.S. This is his thing, not hers. She loves having sex with me but the calls to her husband don’t do anything for her.

Joe Newton

I’m having a problem advising a friend. She’s been through a divorce and now the breaking off of an engagement. To put it simply, both relationships ended because she was cheated on and she has a zero-tolerance policy around infidelity. To complicate matters, in each relationship we—her friends—have witnessed her being very cutting to the point of being downright insulting to her former partners. She has a tendency to tease her partners about their deepest insecurities in public and to express her extreme disdain for their family members openly. I had a chance to speak to each of her former partners after the breakup and they expressed to me that they felt emasculated by her and that their self-esteem was shot and they had essentially “had enough.” However, neither have given her this feedback directly.

My friends and I have hinted to her about this pattern in the hopes of helping her see what her role might be in these breakups. But she takes extreme offense to any criticism and insists she’s the victim. I’m sympathetic to her plight, but her unwillingness to accept any responsibility makes it difficult to offer her any useful advice. I’ve been there for her, calling her daily, and stopping by when I could in a COVID-safe way. But every conversation turns into a three-hour-long rehashing of these relationships with all blame assigned to her exes. I've let a few weeks go by without reaching out because I don’t want to have another one of these conversations. I'm curious what you would do here. Our entire friend group is now debating whether we should share our actual opinions with her at the risk her being angry with us. The other option is to leave it alone and hope she comes to her own conclusions. I wish her exes had the courage to tell her their true feelings.

No Brainpower For Clever Signoff

Joe Newton

I am at a loss. I am devastated. I just found out my husband has been sexting with another woman. As if that wasn’t not bad enough, this woman is his first cousin! And this has been going on for years!

I’ll give you a moment to recover from that jaw drop.

Okay, now the background. We’ve been married for almost thirty years. Our relationship is not all wine and roses but we had counseling years ago and decided we wanted to grow old together. We have similar interests, we love spending time together, and it’s just not the same when one of us is gone. Our sex life was never “off the charts” and, yes, this was one of our main problems. He wanted a lot of sex and I was content with very little. I came to believe he was content too and that he long ago accepted that spending his life with me meant this would be how it was. And I truly believed that our marriage was monogamous. Now I know that only I was monogamous.

If it was any other women than his cousin I might be able to deal with this! I wish it was someone else! I feel trapped! I feel like I can’t talk to anyone! All I can think of is how disgusting and disappointed my children, who are in their 20’s, and his family would be if they found out. This cousin has had many ups and downs. And years ago when my children were small I noticed some flirtatious behavior between her and my husband. I confronted him and demanded to know what the hell was going on! I thought that was the end of it! I was wrong!

I was on my husband’s iPad when I found their explicit chats along with requests for “visuals.” I went to my husband and asked if they had ever gotten together physically. He told me no. A few days later we were on our way to a big family event and this cousin was supposed to be there. With me standing next to him he called her and left a message disinviting her. She called him back and he answered on speaker and I said hello and then asked her if she was fucking my husband. She sounded surprised and caught off guard but she said no. We are about to move to new place to retire! Now what?!?

Insane News: Cousins Erotic Sexting Trouble!