After 19 years together, my husband and I have finally managed to have a really good conversation about our desires. We both struggled to nail down what it is we want — he is a long-term Catholic guilt sufferer — but got to talking about what porn he likes. Turns out he’s into these coercive type scenes, things like, “I caught your shoplifting, eat me out or I’ll call the cops!” and “You can’t make rent? Let me fuck you and we will call it even!” type stuff. He says it’s less about what the action actually is (the sex acts themselves) and more about the power exchange going in either direction (sometimes he fantasizes about being coerced, sometimes he fantasizes about doing the coercing).

Now that sounds hot as hell to me — I’m more of a reader of erotica and I tend to go for free use / MFM stories — but we have a few issues to deal with:

He doesn’t find the idea of treating me badly hot because he loves me, whereas in the fantasy situation, he doesn’t care what the other party thinks. I hate the Madonna/whore thing, so that was frustrating to hear.

Neither of us enjoys role-play. We’ve tried it but the effort of playing a character and improvising really takes us out of the moment. Obviously, it’s hard to play any of the types of scenes we’re talking about without getting into role-play.

Is there anything we can do to take this dynamic and play with it as ourselves? We’ve got two young kids at home so our time for anything spontaneous is very limited.

Recently Exploring New Things

“It takes a lot of guts to express a new sexual desire nineteen years in, and I want to congratulate them for putting it all out in the open,” said Claire Perelman, a licensed therapist who works with couples seeking to improve their sexual connections. “The possibility of feeling rejected by our lovers — or ourselves — can make it so challenging to be that vulnerable. RENT and her husband are a great reminder that you never know how excited your partner might be about trying something new!”

I agree with Claire because Claire’s right: It’s great that you two are finally having this conversation… but I gotta say… this was a conversation you should’ve had six months into your relationship, RENT, not nearly twenty years in. (I checked with Claire about this, and she agreed with me.) You’re not alone in putting this convo off: a lot of us avoid having honest conversations about our desires and/or kinks early on because we fear derailing a promising new relationship. But these conversations get harder the more time passes, not easier, because being rejected by someone we’ve fallen love with is scarier than being rejected by someone we just met. Very few people wanna be with someone who blurts out all of their kinks on the first date/hookup — not even other kinky people — but by the six-month mark (ideally) those kink cards should be face-up on the table.

Okay, RENT, so you’ve finally had this conversation — you now know about your husband’s kinks (does he know about yours?) — but these aren’t fantasies you can realize together. Not just because your husband has one of those annoying Madonna/whore hangups, but because realizing his fantasies would require you to engage in role play, and that’s not something either of you enjoys. And since this is a fantasy scenario that can be ethically explored through role play, your husband — who can’t do role play — has hopefully accepted that he can never realize his fantasies with anyone, like, ever.

So, where do you go from here?

“When engaging in kink, it’s helpful to understand what about the kink excites you,” said Claire. “RENT’s husband identified that it’s not about the sex acts, it’s about the power exchange. There’s lots of ways to play with power dynamics outside of role play, degradation, and humiliation.”

In other words, RENT, you can’t explore your husband’s very specific “but you must pay the rent!” fantasy scenario, but you might be able to explore and enjoy other sex-under-a-mutually-agreeable-degree-of-duress scenarios that work for both of you.

“First, RENT and her husband could try watching the porn he enjoys together,” said Claire, “playing with the fantasy before playing with each other. They could also negotiate ‘free use’ scenes that include both their interests. If they agree on a set time frame where RENT’s husband can make sexual demands, they could incorporate the transactional nature of the sex he fantasizes about while accommodating the scheduling constraints of parenthood. For example, they could agree that after RENT’s husband helps the kids get to sleep, RENT can’t refuse her husband’s demand for a blowjob that helps him to get sleep. There are a lot of creative avenues for this couple to take that aren’t Madonna or whore, but an entirely third path that they can figure out together.”

Follow Claire Perelman on Instagram and Threads @sexclarified.

Read the rest of this week's column here!