I’m a 37-year-old (mostly) straight man who has been in and out of a series of committed, monogamous relationships for most of my adult life. I’m now at a point where I am feeling torn in two, and it doesn’t seem like there’s anyone in my life who I can ask for help who won’t judge me. I am getting old, and I want to have kids. I have always known I wanted to have kids, but it just hasn’t happened yet, mostly because I keep moving for my career and I stayed in some long-distance relationships longer than I should have.
I’m also more and more possessed by a desire to have group sex. This has always been a small idea in the back of my head. But as I’ve grown older, the more obsessed I am with the idea. I dream about FFM threesomes, as so many men do, but lately I’m also into the idea of MMF threesomes as well as having sex in a large, mixed-gender group.
I’ve started seeing a sweet and wonderful woman fresh out of a divorce who has one kid and wants more. But I recently learned that one of the main reasons her marriage broke up is that her ex was into group sex. There was more to their divorce than just that, of course, but her ex’s desire for group sex played a big role. This is a relationship I could really see working in the long run, and it would give me the chance to finally have the family I’ve always dreamed of. But I worry that even bringing up my interest in group sex would make her run for the hills. I’m terrified that I’ve already betrayed her just by continuing to see her — I have not cheated — and conversely, I’m afraid that I’m setting myself up for a life without this thing that has totally consumed my erotic imagination. But if we break up, I’m terrified I’ll miss my chance to have a family, and that seems so much more important than what I find myself thinking of as “just a silly sex thing.”
I’m terrified to even tell my close friends about this because I’m sure they’ll think I’m either a pervert or completely insane for hesitating to marry this woman for this reason. But then I don’t have anybody to talk to. I’m even afraid to broach the subject with a therapist.
Caught Out With A Real Dilemma
We all face, as grown-ass adults, hard choices between competing wannas.
If you wanna be with this woman and start a family, you may not be able to realize your fantasies about group sex. If you wanna act on those fantasies — if you don’t wanna go to your grave without ever having had group sex — you probably won’t be able to start a family with this woman.
That doesn’t mean you can’t date her, COWARD, but you do need to level with her, and soon.
Zooming out for a second: You shouldn’t feel like a freak for having fantasies about group sex, COWARD, and this woman shouldn’t feel like the universe is picking on her by putting another man in her life who fantasizes about group sex. Group sex is an extremely common fantasy! Dr. Justin Lehmiller’s extensive research on people’s sexual interests found that fantasies about threesomes — FFM, MMF, MMM, FFF — are widespread, COWARD, as are fantasies about sex in groups of four or more. We’re talking landslide numbers: 95% of men and 87% of women have fantasized about threesomes, according to Dr. Lehmiller’s research, and upwards of 75% of everybody has fantasized about sex in even larger groups. Which means that anyone this woman dates — statistically speaking — is highly likely to have fantasies about group sex. So, if being with someone who even fantasizes about group sex would send this woman running to the hills, COWARD, she should consider relocating to hill country permanently.
Zooming out a little further: People like to pretend that a sexual fantasy — common or niche — is “just a silly sex thing,” COWARD, especially people who can easily find sexual fulfillment in conventional monogamous relationships, e.g. straight vanilla people. But many kinky people feel self-conscious about their “silly sex things” and don’t feel entitled to prioritize their own sexual fulfillment. No one vanilla or kinky gets everything they want, of course, and everyone has to balance sexual fulfillment and compatibility against other competing priorities, like emotional compatibility, marriage, children, etc., but you have as much right to ask the universe (and your girlfriend) for what you want as any vanilla person does.
We are all entitled to a zone of erotic autonomy — yadda yadda yadda — and no one is obligated to share every desire with a potential partner. We aren’t obligated to disclose every sexual interest and/or obsession to a potential partner. But I would strongly encourage you to disclose your group sex fantasies to this woman, COWARD, if for no other reason than to avoid her finding out on her own. If you tell her now and she runs for the hills, she’ll be upset but she’ll get over it (and over you) while she’s up there. But if she finds out on her own after you’ve had a couple kids — because you forgot to clear your browser history or you blurted it out after your first colonoscopy (coming out from under the anesthesia is a trip) — she’s likely to feel a betrayal so profound that it could tear the family you created with her apart. Knowing you have these fantasies doesn’t mean she has to help you realize them, COWARD, but you shouldn’t be ashamed of them and you don’t want to live with the stress of wondering how she’ll feel when (not if) she finds out.
You say you found out the role group sex played in her divorce recently, COWARD, and it’s understandable that you needed some time to think about how to share this with her. But the longer you wait to tell her, the more emotionally manipulative you’re going to appear when you finally do tell her and/or she finds out on her own. You want to get out in front of this.
P.S. You are not insane and you’re not a pervert — or if you are, COWARD, you have lots of company. If this relationship ends, finding another woman who 1. wants a family and 2. is open to group sex isn’t the terrifyingly impossible task you imagine it to be.
P.P.S. I don’t want to give you false hopes, but there’s a chance that it wasn’t the group sex itself — or the group sex by itself — that she hated about her ex. Did he pressure her to engage in group sex in situations that made her uncomfortable or with people that gave her the ick?
P.P.P.S. Please get a therapist — start your search at AASECT — and broach this subject ASAP.
I’m a gay man pushing forty, and I’ve been with my partner for nearly twenty wonderful, open years. We have a deep, loving foundation, but a recent dry spell coupled with a new face has me spiraling. Lately, my boyfriend has been seeing a 20-year-old boy. Unlike our usual one-offs, this thing has lasted for more than six months and it involves a lot of regular chatting and it looks a lot like they’re dating to me. To make it worse, my partner initially lied about it. Around the same time, he’s had trouble staying hard with me. While we shrugged it off and cuddled in the moment, but I’m being eaten alive by the fear that he’s comparing me to the “younger model” and preparing to replace me with him. I know pressuring him about his performance will only backfire so I have kept my feelings to myself and when it’s just the two of us, we are still as loving and affectionate as ever. Am I overthinking a standard dry spell or is this “hookup” turning into something that genuinely threatens our future?
The Old Man
First: I’m going to refer to your partner’s 20-year-old sidepiece as a “boy.” But he is, in a point of fact, a man. A young man, and a much younger man, but a man.
Moving on: However enamored your partner might be of this boy, TOM, here’s hoping your partner isn’t foolish enough to blow up his life (and yours) for a boy who can’t legally buy a beer. At best, TOM, your partner will be an early, brief, and hopefully positive chapter in this boy’s life — and if your partner isn’t a fool, TOM, he not only knows that himself, he’s communicated that to this boy. (If your partner is making promises he can’t keep and/or filling this boy with false hopes about a future together, he’s violating the Campsite Rule.)
While people in long-ass-term relationships sometimes fantasize about different timelines and/or different partners (see my response to PAIN in last week’s column), TOM, those fantasies are usually idle and fleeting. So, while your partner is obviously into this boy, TOM, and while your partner may have fantasized about an alternative, it doesn’t follow that your partner is preparing to replace you with him.
I’m not gonna sugarcoat this next part: your partner is probably more excited about fucking this boy than he is about fucking you, TOM, but that doesn’t mean your partner loves you any less. It only means that this boy is shiny and new. And while sex with a long-term partner is rewarding in ways that sex with someone you’ve just met can never be, sex with someone new is exciting in ways that sex with someone you’ve been fucking for twenty years can never be. But that’s not something I need to tell you, is it? At some point over the twenty years you’ve been in this open relationship, TOM, you must have experienced the same kind of new relationship energy with someone else — even if that new relationship only lasted a few hours.
Nothing I’ve said excuses your partner lying to you, TOM, and people in open relationships should go out of their way — they should lean into — offering reassurances to their long-term partners. But your partner’s biggest failing, I think, is the way he seems to have taken advantage of some ambiguity in your open relationship. While sex outside your relationship always consisted of one-offs before this boy came along — no repeats — it doesn’t sound like that was ever a formal rule. So, while you’ve been operating under the assumption that repeats weren’t allowed because repeats never happened, your partner is operating under the assumption that repeats were allowed — or conveniently began operating under that assumption about sex months ago — because repeats weren’t specifically disallowed.
That’s not an assumption he should’ve made. Even if the two of you never articulated a rule against repeats and/or the kind of connection he has with this boy, TOM, your partner should’ve checked in with you — and gotten your permission — before this boy became a fixture in your lives. Instead, he lied and/or minimized and/or rationalized his actions and damaged your sense of security (in this relationship) and trust (in him).
So, you need to get on the same page about the rules going forward. You’ll either need to agree on rules that allow for other boyfriends — and what your partner is doing with this boy sounds very boyfriendy — or you’ll need to agree on rules that disallow for other boyfriends. If your partner agrees to a “no repeats, no dating, no other boyfriends” rule going forward, he’ll need to end things with this boy. If he can’t do that, TOM, or you don’t wanna make him do that, he’ll have to promise you that once this boy moves on from him, which he inevitably will, there will never be another boy like him.
P.S. It sounds like you’re reading way too much into one lost erection. Your partner not being able to get it up with you one night isn’t proof your partner isn’t into you — and for all you know, TOM, your partner has had the same problem with this boy. He is getting older, right?
Read more here! And this week on the Lovecast: Our guest this week is Allen Sulkin, creator of the new podcast “Gerbil.” He and Dan analyze the persistence of the insane sex myth that you’ve probably heard about. Do people still believe it? They go into the dark motivations that allowed such a preposterous rumor to live on and on. Gerbil is out now, and you should drop everything to listen to it HERE.
