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My husband and I have had an open marriage for the last two years. Up until five months ago, it was working beautifully. At that point, however, I was sexually assaulted by a former partner. Since that incident, I cannot stand sex with my husband. I completely flip out when he tries to initiate sexual contact. My skin crawls. I become panicked and feel repulsed. I just cannot handle it. Those times when I go along with it anyway leave me feeling enraged and disgusted.

I don't think this is completely unheard of for someone who was relatively recently assaulted, and I am considering therapy to help me work through it. The immediate "problem" is that I have no difficulty having sex with my boyfriend. In fact, the sex with him is amazing and leaves me feeling loved and whole and wonderful.

This is breaking my husband's heart. He has become incredibly jealous of my relationship with my boyfriend. He's depressed. He's angry. He accuses me of no longer loving him, and he wants me to stop sleeping with my boyfriend until our marriage is back to normal. I feel like a horrible person, but I just can't do that. I need that outlet. I need that support. And I admit I have a hard time believing that my husband and I will ever be able to go back to the way things were before.

I feel like I've already lost my former partner (fucked-up though that may seem) and my husband. It kills me to think about cutting out the one positive relationship remaining. On the other hand, I do love my husband — very much — and watching him suffer like this is unbearable.

Potentially Traumatized Sexual Deviant

I'm sorry that you were sexually assaulted — that's awful, PTSD, and I hope you went to the police and I hope you're pressing charges. But I also hope you know that being the victim of sexual assault is not a Get Out of Being a Human Being Free card.

Just because you've been victimized doesn't mean you operate in an alternate moral universe where you're not obligated to take other people's feelings into consideration — particularly the feelings of people you profess to love and happen to be married to. Your first priority in the wake of your assault had to be your own physical and emotional safety, of course, but your behavior toward your husband is both cruel and selfish.

If you truly loved your husband and valued your marriage, PTSD, you would've put the boyfriend on hold and gotten your ass into therapy without having to be told. So from where I sit — on the Bloomington Shuttle, headed to the Indianapolis airport — it looks to me like you want out of this marriage. But instead of taking responsibility for wanting out — not in love with the husband anymore — you're playing the victim card while slamming both hands down on your marriage's self-destruct button.

To sum up, PTSD: You're being a total shit. Do you love your husband? Is your marriage a priority? Then start acting like it: Cut the boyfriend off — for the indefinite future — and get your ass onto a counselor's couch. If you're not willing to do those things, PTSD, then stop emotionally assaulting your husband and put both your marriage and him out of their misery.

I have two clits. How common is this? I have never been able to ride a bike because I have an earthshaking orgasm as soon as I get on the seat. I come on the bus — the soft vibrations are too much! Walking anywhere in tight pants gets me moaning. Is there anything I can do, or rub on myself, to avoid having multiple orgasms in public?

Two Much Fun

I've never heard of someone with two clits — but I haven't searched the medical literature or sought the opinion of an expert. And I'm not inclined to search or seek when a letter is so transparently fake. (Opaque fakes are fine; every letter that makes it into the column is a good hypothetical question — for every reader save one.) People whose genitals are different or ambiguous or terrifying — maybe that's not an extra clit but the tip of your parasitic twin's nose — frequently have questions and concerns, TMF, but multiple earthshaking orgasms aren't high on the list.

You don't have a single clit, TMF, much less two. You're a horny boy with a dick, an e-mail account, and an obsession with/terror of a woman's potential capacity for unlimited sexual pleasure. And I'm hoping — I'm hoping against hope — that seeing your letter in print isn't your peak sexual experience. But odds are...

I am a forty-seven-year-old gay man who has a desire to be humiliated and degraded — by a straight guy! How do I make this happen? Do I just walk up to a straight guy and tell him I want to get on my knees and clean his shoes with my tongue while he spits on me and calls me names? Or that I want to eat out of a dog dish on the floor while he laughs at me? How the hell do I make this happen? How do I approach some straight guy with my request without getting beaten up? Please don't say, "Settle for a very straight-acting and straight-looking gay guy." I have tried that, and it doesn't work! The guy must be totally and completely straight! Otherwise, it's just not a turn-on for me. I'm so desperate that I'm almost willing to pay for it!

Worthless Piece Of Shit

Long odds: if you have a wide circle of sexually adventurous straight friends, WPOS, and you're open with all of your friends about your kinks in a friendly, nonthreatening manner, maybe one or two of your straight male friends might be indulgent/perverse enough to want to engage in a little role-play with you. (And, yes, it's possible to make someone feel threatened by offering to lick their boots and take their abuse.)

Somewhat shorter odds: don't have friends like that? Well, there are a lot of BDSM groups and orgs out there that are mixed, i.e., they have gay, lesbian, straight, bi, and trans members, and most host mixed-play parties. Get involved with one, be open about your kinks, and you'll meet a few kinky straight-male tops who would get a kick out of slapping you around.

Best odds: pay for it, already.

I'm a het male professional in my mid-twenties who wants to find a female dominant partner. Pro-dom services abound for stereotypes like me, but I'm looking for a D/s relationship rather than just playtime. Predictably, I can't find one. Women I meet randomly are mostly socialized to want dominant men, and kink personal sites like FetLife only make my plight look even direr: nearly all the doms are either pros or in their fifties. It's a given that dominant women my age are unicorns, but how can I maximize those slim chances?

Seeking Unrestrained Bitch

By keeping your kink personal ad updated — unlike unicorns, kinky younger women do exist, and you want them to be able to find your ad when they troll on FetLife — and by reconciling yourself to the fact that most submissive straight men in D/s relationships met vanilla women who weren't perverts themselves but were pervertible.

CONFIDENTIAL TO LGBT YOUTH: Please check out the new, improved, expanded, and totally awesome It Gets Better Project site: www.itgetsbetterproject.com. And please don't kill yourself.

Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday at thestranger.com/savage.

More About Jealousy

Comments ( 11 )

Oct 20 10 at 1:27 am
for the 'bitch' guy

i'm bi, and 30... i know LOTS of dom bi women in their late 20's and early 30's. i say look for a bi girl.. a chick who is very open about her sexuality. these are very confident women and are all too willing to tell you what to do. :)

Oct 20 10 at 10:34 am
jack

I don't normally feel the need to point out others grammar/spelling mistakes but is "direr" a word? Its actually sort of difficult to say.

Oct 20 10 at 2:36 pm
GeeBee

You're right jack. Spelling and grammar are getting constantly worser.

Oct 20 10 at 2:51 pm
jaw

I feel terrible for the LW#1 and her husband. I have PTSD myself from the same basic situation and I can say that she better get into therapy fast if she gives one hoot about her husband and her life as she knew it.

She needs to come to terms with the idea that maybe the rape unhinged all her feelings about her husband being a protector of her since he is her primary companion. I have to figure that maybe she has major anger (fair or otherwise...feelings aren't fair!) that her husband failed to protect her. Because if he failed to protect her (rightly or wrongly) she may have seriously new unresolved issues about his role in her life. It was all fun and games before but now she has to look @ her husband in a more "one down" submissive role in a way that is not so fun and sexy.

I don't know if it was your husband's fault or not but you are blaming him and your body and unconscious mind are totally acting out on him. I am all about her feelings and need for therapy to understand and cope with her new lack of security, anger, vulnerability, but I too can appreciate how helpless he must feel right now knowing he wasn't able to help you.

He wants the houselights up on your open marriage and I don't think that is an unfair request. Having sex with the boyfriend is just a way to avoid the real life she has with her primary partner. She needs help and she should seriously consider laying-off the boyfriend experience.

Oct 22 10 at 1:38 am
k

@jack: "it's."

Oh the irony.

Oct 23 10 at 1:31 am
Daniel

Dude, you got the president??

Oct 25 10 at 5:27 pm
bureaucratist

Nothing wrong with an open relationship, but this is a great example of why they don't lend themselves well to long-term stability.

Oct 25 10 at 8:54 pm
K-Star

Maybe PTSD neglected to mention some reason she wants to stay with her husband? my bet's on financial security

Oct 26 10 at 4:11 am
Australian

Americans think they own the world. You are right, i constantly have to ignore the incessant vocabulary errors such as criticise maximise colour labour. These are english words

Oct 26 10 at 7:42 am
I love rumi

All this trouble for confusing our bodies as the primary source of identification. Spiritual beings, folks.
Spiritual beings...

Nov 21 10 at 10:24 pm
Karma

Looks to me like the hag got what was coming to her.

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