I've been mostly happily married for 15 years. I'm a straight man. I love my wife. But after many years, our sex life is unsatisfying. While my wife was barely GGG at the beginning, now she will not go down on me ever. We do have sex four to 10 times a month, but it is always vanilla. I went on Craigslist to look at the "casual encounters" ads, and I replied to some. My only response admitted to being a man pretending to be a woman. Long story short, I let him blow me. I didn't touch him. I just watched some straight porn while he blew me. I have done this a few times with different guys. I am not turned on by men, but I do enjoy the enthusiastic BJs when combined with straight porn. I can't tell my wife, as it would end an otherwise good marriage.
Questions: (1) Does this make me gay, bi or neither? (2) Do I have to stop? I have been careful to keep it pretty safe, and I am not attracted to or interested in these guys. I'm pretty sure if I found a woman interested in an affair, it would be a much riskier emotional tightrope. (3) What should I do?
Blow Job Secrets
(1) I wouldn't call you gay or bi, seeing as you're concentrating on straight porn during those blowjobs. What you describe sounds like a mild case of "situational homosexuality" — something otherwise straight men are sometimes forced to do "for gratification or release in a single-sex environment," as the sex-ed website SexInfoOnline puts it. You're not locked in prison or sweltering away in a shithole like Saudi Arabia, places characterized by "the prolonged absence of partners of the opposite sex." You're just a blowjob-deprived married man who realized that accepting blowjobs from gay or bi men is cheaper than paying female sex workers, and less entangling than an affair with a woman. But you probably don't want to describe yourself as "situationally homosexual," as that sounds pretty gay, so let's go with "opportunistically heteroflexible."
(2) Yes, you have to stop. I would be inclined to give you a pass if you were not having sex with your wife at all — or having sex with her once or twice a year — but you and the wife are having quite a lot of sex. If you were to contract gonorrhea or syphilis from one of your male sex partners, you would almost certainly pass the infection on to your wife before you became symptomatic and got treated. (Unless you're using condoms during those blowjobs, they're not "safe.") If telling your wife about the blowjobs now would end your marriage, imagine telling her after you've passed along a sexually transmitted infection.
(3) You should get your wife's permission — maybe she'd be down with outsourcing oral duties, or like to have an adventure or two of her own — or you should knock it the fuck off.
I am a straight woman who has been with my fiancé off and on for 12 years. I have broken up with him repeatedly, when I become so soul-crushed by our sexless relationship that I have to end it, but we always end up back together. He is possibly asexual, my attraction to him is limited, and he is crap in bed when we do have sex. But I love him, treasure our history, and would love for our families to merge. I had the opportunity recently to get sexual attention outside the relationship, and I can see living with my partner while having a sex life that involves other people. This is something he would never agree to. I am currently examining my morals to see if I can be OK with this arrangement. It is the only thing I can think of that will allow me to stay with him.
Wondering If Faithfulness Endures
Would it be a good idea to marry a possibly asexual man you don't find attractive because you could see yourself being happy with him ... so long as you can wrap your morals around lying to him for three or four decades?
Don't do it.
The amount of stress that will pile up over the years will soon outweigh the stress of one honest conversation about the role of sex in your marriage. But instead of saying, "I'll marry you, but only if I can fuck other people," go with this: "Sex has never really been important to us as a couple. It doesn't define our connection, and it never has." Then tell him that you won't consider sex outside the marriage — so long as it is safe and discreet — grounds for divorce. Hopefully he'll agree. If not, don't marry him.
In your response to FURFAG last week, the guy who has been in an online relationship with a guy he has never met, you focused on their need to meet in person before moving across the country to be with each other. I believe you focused on the wrong part of FURFAG's letter. His real problem was revealed in the last part: "Sex doesn't hold a big interest for me, and porn doesn't do ANYTHING for me — gay, straight, it's like watching a sweaty, breathy anatomy class. I've never even masturbated." That just screams POSSIBLE MEDICAL ISSUE. A 21-year-old man who is not aroused by visual stimuli and has never masturbated? This man needs to see his doctor and get referrals to an endocrinologist and a urologist. (I know asexuals will skewer me for this, but until someone has explored all possible medical and psychological explanations for a disinterest in sex, I have to disagree.) The likelihood of FURFAG having a spark with his online boyfriend is nil if he didn't find that spark with a gym sock at age 12.
Get That Checked
Listen in as Dan gets drunk with NPR White House correspondent Ari Shapiro at Town Hall in Seattle: savagelovecast.com.
