Mommy Issues

...age to even understand. Over the years, he’s had a fixation with women’s feet and giant women stomping on small figures (all of this in anime/manga). Again, I really want him to grow up with healthy attitudes towards sex — but this is parenting at a whole new level. Is it possible for me to dial back this very adult behavior? I’m overwhelmed already and puberty has just begun! Mostly Understanding Mom Oh, momma. You are in for an exhausting five years. You’re gonna need to remain vigilant — monitoring your son’s online activities — while running gentle interference. You can’t prevent your son from getting online, but you can put filters on his devices, regularly check his browser history, and regularly remind him that you’re regularly checking his browser history. The goal isn’t to shame (not good) or rewire him (not possible), but to keep him safe from predators, scammers, and the kind of malicious sextortionists who’ve driven young people — particularly young boys — to suicide. The fact that your son likes following orders makes him particularly vulnerable to malicious actors who are tricking boys into sending them intimate pics and then blackmailing them with threats of sending their pics and videos to classmates and family members. In addition to telling your son you’re monitoring his online activities to keep him safe, you should tell him that you understand that he thinks he’s ready… but he’s not. And anyone who would give him the time of day right now — much less dominate him — is by definition a terrible person who can’t be trusted. (And anyone who demands money and/or gift cards from him is only interested in money.) Let him know there are good people out there who enjoy all the same things he does but the good ones — the people he’ll be able to trust — won’t go near him until he’s an adult. So, for now he’ll just have to content himself with fantasizing about his kinks and masturbating to his part’s content. And if you can get him safely through high school… Your son can be a kinky adult and have a healthy attitude toward sex — those are not mutually exclusive phenomenon. The chief concern expressed to me by parents who’ve just learned their kid is kinky — when parents find the latex gloves or the diapers or the handcuffs — is that their kid will never find love. Pre-internet, being kinky complicated a person’s search for love; the kinky person had to meet people the normal way, e.g., at work, in bars, through friends, etc., and eventually disclose their kink. This often resulted in the kinky person getting dumped, being shamed and sometimes outed. Nowadays, kinky adults have the option of getting on kink dating and hookup sites and searching for partners who share their kinks. Dating and hookup apps have their downsides, for sure, but a lot of people have found the loves of their lives on them — and they’ve vastly improved relationship success rates for kinky adults. P.S. I’m sure MUM would love to hear from some readers who once were kinky young people and who are now healthy and functional kinky adults. What did your parents — if they found out about your kinks — say or do? What was helpful? What was harmful? Jump into the comments and share some advice with MUM. P.P.S. You can’t rewire your son’s erotic imagination, MUM, nor should you waste time trying. People don’t choose their kinks and can’t be shamed out of them; and most healthy, functional kinky adults became aware — sometimes painfully aware — of their kinks at the onset of puberty. If all goes well, one day your adult son will tell the story of that time his mom found out he’d been sending gift cards to some fake Dom he met online and be able to laugh about it with the woman who owns him. Is it possible to be in mourning for a fantasy that will never be fulfilled? I’m a 44-year-old cis het man, and since hitting puberty I’ve fantasized about sleeping with an older woman — like, a much older woman. The fantasy was always about the mature older woman and, well, that younger and more virile version of me at eighteen. But it never happened. I got married right out of college, got divorced young, and quickly married again. Now that I am solidly middle aged and in a monogamous (and very happy) relationship, not only has the prospect of realizing this kink most likely ended, but I am finding it increasingly difficult to even fantasize about it anymore. I’m just too old to have this sort of situation be a realistic scenario. I’m not finding an older woman to sleep with anytime soon, and I’m not magically turning back into a twenty-something anytime soon. Knowing that I’ve aged out of my ultimate fantasy without ever acting on it makes it almost sad to think about. I’m not asking you that dumb and obvious question (“Is this normal?”), as I’ve reading you long enough to know the answer to that. I guess what I’m asking is for advice on how I can deal with the sadness I’m feeling about this. Often Life Disappoints Seeing as you’re mourning a fantasy that will never be fulfilled — you’re never gonna be that 18-year-old stud who seduces/is seduced by a mature older woman — the answer to your first question (“Is it possible to be in mourning for a fantasy that will never be fulfilled?”) is obviously yes, OLD, as demonstrated by your own feelings of grief. As for what to do with those feelings, well, you did something very useful with your sadness today by writing to me. While it may be too late for you to do something about your fantasy, your letter will hopefully inspire others — young and old alike — to act on their fantasies before it’s too late, e.g., before they’re too married and/or too monogamous and/or too decrepit. (Fantasy-fulfillment pro tip: creating opportunities >>> seizing opportunities.) But I gotta say… you’re not too old to realize this fantasy, OLD. While you can’t play the young and virile stud for a 50-year-old woman — your fantasy requires an age gap that gapes — you can play the younger and still virile stud for a woman in her mid-sixties; youth and virility are relative. To realize your fantasy the right way, i.e., to do it without being a cheating piece of shit, OLD, you’re gonna need your wife’s permission. If your wife is one those people — one of those insecure, irrational people — who expects all of her partner’s sexual thoughts and fantasies to revolve around her, then she’s unlikely to react positively to your request for a hall pass. But if your wife doesn’t expect all of your sexual fantasies to revolve around her… if your wife doesn’t have a problem with you looking at porn… if she doesn’t get angry when she notices you noticing the hot barista… getting a little tipsy and/or high and having a conversation about your sexual fantasies and hers — AND HERS AND HERS AND HERS AND HERS — might get you that hall pass. P.S. Go in prepared to offer your wife a hall pass too, OLD, because if your wife’s been fantasizing about fucking some young stud… Yahtzee! Here are the background details: My son was once a 16-year-old junior in high school and very introverted kid. He never expressed any interest in girls or boys, but one day he comes home with a dress he bought at Goodwill. I asked him then if it had anything to do with his sexuality and he said it didn’t, although he would later come out to us as bisexual. It’s now 10 years later, and my now 26-year-old son sometimes wears a skirt to his job as a legal assistant. I am not against him wearing a skirt if that’s what he wants, but I worry about his safety. He lives in Chicago and takes public transportation. Do I need to be concerned, or should I just let him do as he wants? He’s an adult now, and he’s a smart and wonderful person. I want him to do what is right for him, but I worry about the rest of the world. Loving Parent In Chicagoland I wanna live in a world where people can wear whatever they want without having to worry what other people might say or do. We don’t live in that world, LPIC, but your son — by being himself and wearing whatever he wants — is helping to create that world. There’s a risk, of course, that your son might attract some negative attention when he leaves his apartment in a skirt. But your son is a grown-ass man, LPIC, and I’m confident he’s calculated — and can control for — whatever risk he’s running. P.S. Chicago, my hometown, is one of those big and diverse and consequently tolerant cities where the sight of a dude in a skirt on the Red Line is unlikely to cause a riot. And I rode public transportation in Chicago when I was in my teens and twenties in some crazy fucking lewks, as the kids say, and lived to tell the tale. P.P.S. Every kid in Chicagoland — regardless of sexual orientation or gender expression — should be so lucky as to have a mom like you. I’m a married straight woman. A friend was visiting recently with her husband. Things were rocky between them for some time and yet they seemed to be doing very well. They were very attentive to each other and even a little lovey-dovey. I privately asked her what made the difference, and she told me that by her husband’s request they started having an ANR (Adult Nursing Relationship) over a year ago. She was initially hesitant about the idea as well as the commitment, yet as time went by, she noticed the benefits to their relationship. A short, non-scientific online research confirmed her assessment. This has me wondering if I can apply the same approach to my somewhat dwindling marriage. I’m not sure the every-three-hour routine can work for us and have me producing milk again. Even if it could, my husband was reluctant to touch my breasts while I was breastfeeding our two children, now adults. Yet the idea of doing it “dry” while maintaining an eye contact and “lending a hand” in case the need arises is enough to excite me. My husband was always the initiator in our bedroom situations, and I wonder how I can introduce the idea without him feeling “demoted” or infantilized. Your thoughts and the thoughts of others are welcome. American Nursing Resources Lots of kinky straight men wanna live in a world where instead of having to beg their wives to peg them or cuck them or nurse them, their wives hear about pegging or cucking or adult nursing relationships — even once — and suddenly can’t wait to peg or cuck or nurse them. They don’t live in that world, but writing fake letters to advice columnists makes it a little easier for kinky straight men to pretend they do… and to masturbate about it. Which is a long way of saying… your letter reads like it was written by a man, ANR. There are kinky women out there — I get letters every day from women who, unprompted/unbegged, wanna peg their husbands — but it’s rare for women in long-term, vanilla, heterosexual marriages to suddenly acquire a very specific and very niche kink. But on the off chance you’re for real, ANR, here’s what you say to your husband: “Martha and George have been doing this kinky thing — it’s a real kink with websites and books and subreddits of its own — and it sounds like fun and I wanna give it a try. What do you think?” Even if your husband isn’t interested, ANR, don’t lose sight of what improved your friend’s marriage: it wasn’t what they were doing with each other — ANR, the kink, doesn’t have magical marriage-improving properties — but that they were doing it for each other. They were communicating, they were taking risks, they were having an adventure. It was the listening and playfulness that revived their relationship, not the popping of a tit into a mouth. It could’ve been pegging, cuckolding, nursing — it could’ve been anything — so don’t despair if your husband isn’t into this particular thing, ANR. Suggest something else. Got problems? Email your question to Dan here! Or record your question for the Lovecast here! 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