I am a kinky, youthful 72-year-old guy. I grew up when there was virtually no way to meet a kinky woman. I've had two vanilla marriages, and three months ago I ended a four-year vanilla relationship with the best woman I've ever met. I just couldn't take not being a BDSM person anymore. My ex (I'll call her "Mel") and I have been bereft over our split. But I need the BDSM lifestyle, and I figured that I would meet someone else.
Two days ago, Mel called. She's willing to do what I need if it will make it possible for us to be together. Since I am a switch, it would be perfectly acceptable to have her abuse and torture me. I am functioning as a Dom in the BDSM world, since there are so few female switches and the competition for female dominants is fierce. However, if I had to choose, I would choose to be a sub to a dominant woman. Can Mel be that woman? Is it possible for a vanilla person to adapt to BDSM? She does have a few weirdo fantasies, such as making it with a chimp. But she stresses these are not intensely compelling, as mine are. Are there any good books on this?
Wants Helpful Insight, Please
P.S. My son turned me on to your column recently!
"Good for you for being honest about the importance of kink in your life," says Joan Price, author of Naked at Our Age: Talking Out Loud About Senior Sex. "Sometimes it takes a series of unfulfilling relationships to make sexy, silver-haired folks like us say, 'If not now, when?'"
And if not Mel, who?
You're a new reader, WHIP, so you missed this insight the first 10,000 times it appeared: You'll meet two kinds of people at leather/fetish/BDSM contests, play parties and street festivals: people who were always kinky, and people who fell in love with someone who was kinky, gave their partners' kinks a try, and grew to love their partners' kinks.
So Mel may be able to "adapt." Price agrees: "It's absolutely possible for your vanilla lady to shift into kinky sex, especially since she's in love with you. Whether she's doing it just to please you or she's open to kinks herself, give her a chance."
But you're going to need to take it slow, and to use your words.
"Tell her what turns you on," says Price. "Share erotica or porn featuring your favorite activities. Solicit her fantasies about dominating you, if she has them, or suggest some scenes and see what she responds to. Once she's ready and willing, start with small steps rather than full-blown scenes, so she can ease into this new world."
If all goes well — if Mel isn't traumatized or disgusted, if she enjoys dominating you or is GGG enough to go there for you on a regular basis — don't be a stupid, selfish kinkster. Don't neglect Mel's desire for vanilla sex. If it helps to think of vanilla sex as a horrible ordeal that you have to submit to, ask Mel to order you to have vanilla sex.
As for books, Price and I recommend The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge, a collection of essays edited by the indispensable Tristan Taormino. And if you're hoping Mel will join you at public fetish events, get a copy of Mollena Williams and Lee Harrington's Playing Well With Others: Your Field Guide to Discovering, Exploring and Navigating the Kink, Leather and BDSM Communities.
Joan Price blogs about sex and aging at NakedAtOurAge.com. Follow her on Twitter @JoanPrice.
I'm a bisexual or pansexual or omnisexual — or whatever the kids are calling us these days — woman in a monogamish marriage to a great, GGG straight man. Both of us are in our early 30s. We've traveled around the world and done whatever the hell we wanted. It was a crazy exciting life, but we decided it was time to stop living paycheck to paycheck, so we came back to the States.
We recently bought a house and were planning to have a kid. But now my husband says that he's not ready. He says there are things he wants to do that he will never ever get to do if we have kids. I asked him for a time frame, and he said that he couldn't answer that. What he has said to me is: "We've always said we'd never be one of those couples that stop adventuring because we have a nest and kids and stuff." This might be a deal-breaker for me. I want to be a mom. I don't want my husband to feel resentment that he never got to live the life he wanted — but he can't even give me a time frame. What should I do?
Childless H
First, get to a couples counselor.
Second, relay this message to your husband from me:
Travel and adventure — sexual and otherwise — don't have to stop after you become parents. They become more difficult, logistically speaking, but you can have adventures, as a couple and as individuals. (It's good for married people to spend time apart.) Most parents do stop adventuring — but that's usually because they were ready to stop adventuring or weren't that adventurous in the first place. You can do it differently. Pro tip: It's easier to make time for adventuring if you have one kid. And traveling with a small child — even taking off to live in a foreign country for a year or two — is a lot easier than Parentlandia propaganda would have you believe. You and your wife are adventurous people — and adventurous people can be adventurous parents.
DEAR READERS: You were probably expecting me to comment on that "making it with a chimp" detail in WHIP's letter. But I had nothing to say except "Really? Chimp fantasies? Damn."
This week on the Savage Lovecast: Do bisexuals need a new label? Savagelovecast.com.
