Faithful

...t how to fix us, but I don’t know if I can ride this messed-up roller coaster anymore. On the other hand, I don’t want to waste the rest of my life being a divorced fortysomething, but I still feel idiotic trying to fix our fucked-up relationship. She reads your column every week, so if you publish this, I’ll have to talk to her about my illness, so at least that won’t be an issue. What should I do about us? Doubting The Marital Future Again You and the wife have a resilient connection, DTMFA. Some intangible something or other has pulled you toward each other despite infidelities on both sides. And reading between the lines—and ignoring the acronym your sign-off creates—it doesn’t sound like being alone or your terminal illness are the only reasons you’re hesitating to file those divorce papers. It sounds to me like you love your wife, DTMFA, and it sounds like she loves you. Imperfectly. And maybe your semi-imminent death is putting those infidelities in their semi-proper perspective. I’m thinking the real reason you haven’t filed those divorce papers yet is this: On some level, you now recognize that your actual, existing, loving-but-flawed marital relationship should be given more weight than the marital ideal that you’ve both fallen short of, i.e., a flawlessly executed monogamous commitment. I’m sorry about your diagnosis, DTMFA, I hope your remaining years are rich and rewarding, and it would be a shame if you had to face them alone. Maybe if you two changed your expectations of each other—if perfect sexual exclusivity wasn’t one of them—you two would be less disappointed in each other. Good luck. Are there kinky people interested in BDSM without sex? I’m an early-40s gal living in the Midwest. I’m in a decent-to-great marriage, have two kids, a good life. But my husband is not kinky, not at all. I feel like I’ve done all I can to get him comfortable with rough sex, power play, etc., but aside from some very reluctant spanking, hair pulling, and a few humiliating (not in a good way) attempts at bondage, our sex life is almost totally vanilla. I enjoy the sex we have, but not being all of who I am sexually is making me resentful, miserable, and desperate. At this point, I’m not even interested in trying to get my husband on board—it obviously makes him uncomfortable, and I think he’s just been hoping my desires would go away. They have not, of course, and will not. But I can’t see breaking up my marriage over this! My desires for intense physical play, D/s, role-play, etc. are only getting stronger. Is it even worth trying to find people to play with who would be okay with no sex? I think I could be happy staying monogamous if I could just get some of my needs met elsewhere. I’m going insane, but I don’t know if this is a thing, and research online has not been helpful. Is there any hope? Sincerely Longing In Midwest There are lots of people involved in the organized kink scene who do BDSM without the sex, SLIM. For some, the BDSM is the sex. Bondage, D/s, spanking, etc. is all they require to get off. But you’ll also find plenty of folks like you in the organized kink scene—that is, men and women who wanna do BDSM while remaining vanilla/technically faithful to their non-kinky partners at home. Here’s the hard part, SLIM: Doing this on the down low—getting involved in the organized kink scene without your husband’s knowledge—is going to be impossible. You don’t mention having your husband’s okay to outsource your kinks, and I can only assume that you haven’t talked about it with him. You need to. Because the more involved you get in the organized kink scene, the more potential play partners you’ll have to choose from. The more play partners you have to choose from, the safer you’re going to be—and the less likely you are to be manipulated into going further than you want to. A guy who knows that (1) he’s your only outlet for BDSM play, (2) you had a hard enough time finding him, and (3) you’re hiding him from your husband is a guy with too much power over you—that’s a guy who could, after one or two sessions, make upgrading to full sex a condition of your continuing to see him. I have a fantastic relationship with my girlfriend. The entire time we’ve been together—nearly two years—has been marked by physical and emotional honesty and openness. While we’ve been sharing our fantasies pretty much since we first started dating, we’ve recently been talking about which fantasies we’d like to try in real life. One in particular is posing a bit of difficulty. She really enjoys receiving facials, which I’ve known since pretty much the second time we had sex. She’s even more turned on by the idea of multiple men coming on her face, a revelation that came much later since she didn’t want me to think she was a freak or a bad feminist. (She isn’t!) The thing is, the idea also turns me on, which I was reluctant to tell her since I didn’t want her to think I was a creep or a misogynist. (I’m not!) But figuring out how to find a man (or men) to aid in this kink is a little tricky. Assuming there was no intercourse or oral sex—the only contact with other men would be their come on her face—what are the risks of contracting something? No matter how good the aim, there’s the possibility of her eyes and mouth inadvertently becoming a part of the show. Imperfect Come Is No Good Gonorrhea, syphilis, and chlamydia—you can get all three in your eyes. A person can contract all three orally as well, ICING, but the mucous membranes in the eyes are more delicate, and the risk is both greater and grosser. As your girlfriend probably doesn’t want to wear swimming goggles and keep her mouth tightly closed during her big fantasy facial scene—it’s hard to get swept up in the moment wearing goggles—you’re gonna want to do this with strangers who are willing to test or with guys you already know and trust. Neither option is 100 percent risk-free, ICING, but nothing worth doing is 100 percent risk-free. On the Lovecast, Dan speaks with Irish drag queen Panti Bliss. Don’t miss this one: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter