My wife and I are socially monogamous but have a DADT arrangement that applies if we’re not in our home city. While my wife would prefer that I divulge details to her, I don’t want to hear her details, so we defaulted to DADT based on my preferences. Because we aren’t out to friends about being open and I can’t share this with my wife, I don’t have anyone I can talk to about this, so I am writing to you.

 I just had an outstanding weekend getaway with a new friend. Nothing in particular was over the top about our itinerary — saunas and cold plunges followed by fancy meals — but time flew by while also seeming to stand still. The sex was WOW and our conversations about serious subjects were spiced with tongue-in-cheek teasing about this fantasy world we were playing in. She is poly and can share details with her partners, but she enjoys the “secrecy” aspect of my arrangement. We’ve been messaging each other about just how hot our getaway was and have already scheduled our next trip together in a few months. Messaging someone else from “home base” may constitute a rules violation.

Here is my question: How do I sustain the erotic tension with this new friend with so much time between now and our next date? We are planning to introduce Shibari into our play next time, with me tying her, so I was thinking sending some self-tie photos or photos of the ties I plan on doing would sustain the erotic tension. But taking photos at “home base” would obviously count as another possible rules violation.

Context for the two “rule violations” I’ve cited: there is an implied agreement between my wife and I to suspend engagement with play partners while at “home base.” This is probably more my rule than my wife’s rule.

Bending Rules In Erotic Frenzy

Let’s get the question you asked out of the way first: Will sending your new friend photos of Shibari knots sustain the erotic tension in the long run-up to your next meeting? Maybe. Maybe not. What works for one person — what cranks one person up — doesn’t necessarily work for another person. Hearing about your sexual adventures turns your wife on, apparently, while hearing about hers turns you off. That’s why you defaulted to “don’t ask, don’t tell.” So yeah, sending knotty photos is obviously gonna work for you — that’s why you wanna do it — but only your new friend knows whether they’re gonna work for her.

So, ask her. Dirty pics? Dirty texts? Dirty stories? Or would she prefer to reconnect, via text, shortly before your next planned meeting? She could be busy with other partners and, as much as she’s looking forward to connecting with you again, texting with you on a daily or even weekly basis might be too distracting. Or it could be a welcome distraction — again, you’re gonna to communicate with her about this, BRIEF, not me. (But even if she wants to swap sexts for the next three months, BRIEF, show a little restraint; you wanna build erotic tension, not burn through it.)

And speaking of communication


The DADT agreement you have with your wife is way too vague. You mentioned one basic rule in addition to no asking and no telling: no engaging with other partners from home base. But that rule seems to have been implied or inferred somehow, not agreed upon. So, are you allowed to text a play partner when you’re back in your home city? Are sext messages worse than casual check-ins? Is complete radio silence required between visits, or just physical no-contact? And here’s the biggie: Are these “rules” actually rules, or are they just your preferences that your wife is honoring (or mirroring) without question
 because that’s what you needed? And if these unwritten/unverbalized rules were defaulted into for your comfort, BRIEF, and they’re not working for you anymore, why haven’t you talked to your wife about changing them? If it’s because you have a hard time talking about this — if opening your marriage was fraught — that’s understandable. If it’s because you want to be free to sext up a storm with your side pieces but don’t want your wife doing the same, that’s not an “arrangement,” BRIEF, that’s a shitty and manipulative double standard.

Non-monogamous relationships require more communication, not less — well, at least the ethically non-monogamous relationships do. While it’s great that you found someone with whom you click and you’re excited to see again, you owe it to your wife to have an honest conversation about the terms of your DADT agreement. You need settings, not default settings; you need agreements, not assumptions. And if you’re allowed to do something — if you’ve already given yourself permission to do something — your wife has a right to know she’s allowed to do the same.

 I’m a cis woman in my mid-thirties in an open relationship with my long-term partner, who is a trans man. Because I don’t frequently have sex with people other than him, I haven’t been on any kind of contraception since pretty early on in our relationship. It was SUCH a relief to be done with IUDs and birth control pills! Within our open relationship, our rule has been to always use condoms when having sex with people with penises. This goes for both of us, even though my partner can’t get pregnant — it has just been our rule for safety.

As I have gotten back out there, there are more dicks entering my life and I’m noticing that cis men, while respectful of my request for condom use, clearly prefer not to use them. I’m beginning to question this as a hard rule. What if a potential partner has no other sex partners and has been tested for STIs? What if they do have other sex partners but have been tested? What if they’ve had a vasectomy? What if they haven’t? What if we are careful with the pull-out method AND maybe take extra precautions using the Fertility Awareness Method? I’d like to hear your take on condoms for PIV sex, which might also help me to talk about it with my primary partner. Help a girl out who wants to raw dog it sometime soon?

Wants A Penis

You and your partner agreed to one very explicit rule — good on you both for making the rules clear — and now you want to renegotiate that rule. It’s going to be a complicated conversation, WAP, and you may not get the answer you want right away (or at all), but asking to renegotiate the rules shouldn’t be against the rules.

Here are my thoughts on condoms and PIV sex: Seeing as abortion has been banned or heavily restricted in more than half the states, and seeing as Republicans are right now working to roll back access to both medication abortion and birth control, anyone with a working flesh-and-blood dick who wants to raw dog a casual sex partner — straight guys, bi guys, pan guys, non-binary theys, homoflexible gays, whatever — should get a vasectomy before those are banned. Now more than ever, men and other dick-having AMABs need to ejaculate responsibly, in the immortal (and viral) words of Gabrielle Stanley Blair, aka “Design Mom.”

In fairness to the men and other penis-having people you’ve been with, WAP, it doesn’t sound like you’re being pressured into ditching condoms by selfish or inconsiderate dicks. You’re the one who wants a raw dogging — for your own reasons, for your own pleasure — and you’re reassessing the risks for your own sake. So, it’s time to reopen negotiations with your partner about the condom-on-every-dick rule you agreed to when you first opened your relationship. You don’t want to ditch condoms entirely — that would be buts — but you would like to be able to make exceptions for trusted, regular partners who’ve been tested recently and maybe aren’t sleeping with anyone else right now.

Now, a negative STI test result doesn’t confer immunity. Someone could pick up an STI after testing, WAP, and if they slept with you before they started showing symptoms, you could wind up infected too. That might be an unacceptable risk in your partner’s eyes
 but it might not be. If your partner is having sex with cis men, he’s probably encountered guys who don’t want to use condoms — or refuse to use condoms — because they’re on PrEP and DoxyPEP. For all you know, WAP, your partner may want to renegotiate the condom rule just as badly as you do.

P.S. Gay guys? They’re coming for our PrEP too.

Read the rest of this week's column here! And this week on the Lovecast: A woman gives a compelling defense of faking orgasms. Will Dan Savage accept it?

On the Magnum, Dan welcomes back the thoroughly delightful comedian Zach Zimmerman. They discuss the word “daddy.” Is it an honorific that one hurls at another? Or a pre-negotiated, agreed upon role? They also talk about anger in comedy, and the real meaning of tolerance. LISTEN HERE!