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SAVAGE
LOVE
BY
DAN SAVAGE
Ever
since hearing you say on your podcast that all men use porn,
I have had a burning question: What about us women? If all
men get a pass to have this whole other sex life, which is
(mostly) external to their partnerships and is sexually satisfying,
then I think all women should have a pass as well. Ideally,
it would be a pass to enjoy something universally arousing
to all women, something that would sexually satisfy us, but
it wouldn’t be something that turns most men on, perhaps it
might even repulse them.
If there were something that met my criteria, I wonder how
it would play out in our relationships? Also, I am not sure
what it could be, as women are a little bit more complicated.
—Desires
Erotic Balance
Something
women enjoy but men do not . . . something erotic . . . a
free pass for just the ladies . . . something that repulses
most men . . .
Cupcakes?
The now-ubiquitous cupcake isn’t explicitly sexual, I realize,
but our culture does encourage people—women in particular—to
sublimate their erotic desires by stuffing their faces with
food. And most of those squat, round, and pink-frosted things
look, to my jaded eyes, like so many squat little cocks, DEB,
so many growers-not-showers with pink sprinkles, and most
of those cupcocks are inhaled by women. So, cupcakes.
But if cupcakes don’t do it for you, DEB, then how about a
free pass to enjoy, eyedunno, maybe porn?
“We’re
actually in the middle of a porn-for-women revolution as millions—yes,
millions—of women are loudly, even proudly, proclaiming
their interest in porn,” says Violet Blue, author, blogger,
activist, and tireless foe of antiporn boneheads everywhere.
If you were reading Blue’s blog—tinynibbles.com—you would
know that one out of every three consumers of internet porn
is female, according to a Nielsen NetRatings report released
in 2007.
“What’s
interesting isn’t just the growing number of women using porn,”
says Blue, “it’s that they’re doing exactly what DEB suggests.
It’s part of their own private sex lives that are mostly external
to their relationships; they’re using porn as reliably as
their favorite vibrators.”
What women have lacked up to now is the same “free pass” men
enjoy.
“Guys
are encouraged to have this other sex life with porn,” says
Blue, “that’s seen as normal and healthy. But despite the
numbers, our culture is having a hard time admitting that
women like porn. Antiporn feminists ignore the female viewer.
The only people, besides Oprah, acknowledging the female viewer
are the antiporn Christians who see it (and female masturbation)
as a disease they can cure!”
Blue directs female porn consumers to Our Porn, Ourselves
(ourpornourselves.org).
“On
OPO, women are talking about liking all kinds of porn, even
stuff that goes too far for some guys,” says Blue. “Women
are making each other feel comfortable about their newfound
access to porn, openly having their desire to watch sex (and
jack off to it) validated the same way that guys do.”
I
am a man who has been in an open marriage for 10 years. My
wife dates men on her own, and I get to enjoy the occasional
threesome with her and one of her partners. (We had no luck
dating women or couples.) The problem is, she is clearly more
interested in “her” dates than in “ours,” probably because
the hotter guys are more interested in her alone than in us
together. My wife is GGG, but it is hard for her to persuasively
feign interest in the guys who are interested in us both.
I can tell she would much rather be out on one of her dates.
And it is frankly depressing to watch her go through the motions
with one of “ours.”
Does being GGG require her to be a good actress, or does it
require me to pretend that I believe her when she claims she
enjoys the three-ways we have together?
—Is
This A Silly Problem?
This
isn’t a silly problem, ITASP, not at all.
Open relationships only work—closed relationships only work—when
they make both people happy. You’re not happy, ITASP, which
means your open relationship isn’t working.
Time to renegotiate terms.
Tell the wife to stop fucking other people for a while. (And,
yes, you should have the authority to do that—both partners
in an open relationship should be able to call a time-out.)
If your wife balks, concede that there are lots of hot guys
out there who want to fuck her and that you’re asking her
to pass up on some opportunities for hot sex. Then remind
her that you’re the guy she married, that you’re the
guy she’s hoping will stick around once hot guys aren’t lining
up to get in her pants anymore, and that there will still
be hot guys out there who want to fuck a year from now.
While you’re not fucking other people, fuck each other, fuck
a lot, work to reestablish your sexual connection.
Then when you’re ready to start fucking other people again—and
you’re not ready until you’re both ready—your wife
should agree that over the next year she will fuck only guys
who are interested in fucking you both. That’s going to mean
passing up on some hot guys who are only into her, of course,
but that’s a sacrifice she should be willing to make in order
to save her marriage. It also means that she’ll have to work
harder to find hot guys who are into you both—do whatever
you can to help—but she’s likelier to make that extra effort
if it’s the only way she gets to fuck a hot guy who isn’t
her husband.
Hopefully by the time your three-way-or-the-highway year is
up, ITASP, you’ll have a few regular thirds on deck—hot guys
who are into you both, guys your wife won’t have to pretend
with—and then she can do some solo adventuring without shredding
your self-esteem in the process.
What
is your favorite kink? What fucked-up thing does Dan Savage
get up to?
—Nosy
Reader
My
kinks aren’t interesting, NR, and my marriage vows specifically
forbid me from disclosing that sort of information.
Here’s something interesting: “A Palestinian man has been
convicted of rape after having consensual sex with a woman
who had believed him to be a fellow Jew,” the Guardian
reported last week. After the dude “introduced himself as
a Jewish bachelor seeking a serious relationship,” the two
“had consensual sex in a nearby building.” The woman went
to the cops to report that she had been raped only after she
learned that the man wasn’t Jewish.
Now I don’t think there’s anything wrong with one-night stands,
or with being a slut, or with fucking the shit out of a guy
you’ve only just met (that’s how I met my husband), but I
gotta say: When we have consensual sex with strangers—when
we go home or to “a nearby building” with someone we’ve only
just met—we’re not just taking a chance on a person we know
very little about. We’re taking a chance on our own bullshit
detectors. And no one’s bullshit detectors are 100 percent
accurate. So someone who can’t bear the thought of accidentally
fucking an Arab or a Republican or a married man or a guy
who makes less than $250,000 a year really has no business
fucking strangers. That person owes it to himself/herself
to get to know people a bit better before visiting any nearby
buildings with them.
Not because it’s OK to lie. But because people do lie.
mail@savagelove.net
Find the Savage Lovecast (my weekly podcast) every Tuesday
at thestranger.com/savage.
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