Never Enough

...question is mostly related to porn: Why does he watch it? I feel as though I am not enough. I am 29 and attractive. What should I do? Wife Is Feeling Entirely Yucky You should stop looking at your husband’s browser history. I have no way of knowing exactly what your husband means by “doesn’t need to [cheat],” WIFEY, but here’s the best-case scenario: You’re his only sex partner, he’s totally into you, but like all humans—including wife humans—he’s wired to desire a little variety and some novelty. No one is “enough” for anyone, and anyone who tells you otherwise is a liar. Which is not to say that everyone cheats (because not everyone does) or that cheating is okay (because it rarely is), but cheating is common enough that forgiving an isolated infidelity (or two) should be our default setting, not immediately lawyering up and filing for divorce. (And truly forgiving someone for cheating means not flinging it in her face during subsequent disputes.) Back to the best-case scenario: Your husband wants to have sex with other people (and so do you) but he doesn’t (and neither do you). Instead of cheating, WIFEY, your husband scratches that variety itch with porn. He pops into his favorite sites once or twice day, just like millions of other people, but he’s not cheating on you. (Unless you define viewing porn as cheating—in which case, good luck finding a man who won’t cheat on you.) I would advise you, again, to stop scouring his browser history for evidence of what you already know to be true—your husband is attracted to other people and sometimes looks at porn—and make up your mind to enjoy the effect porn has on your husband, i.e., it revs him up and stokes his desire for you. Now here’s the worst-case scenario: Your husband is cheating on you, perhaps during those business trips, and “doesn’t need to [cheat]” was an insincere blandishment. But absent some other compelling evidence of cheating—incriminating text messages, mysterious credit-card charges, brand-new STIs—you’re just going to have to take him at his word. I have a question about the price of admission. I am a male in an eight-year het relationship. The sex is unquestionably amazing. The thing is, my girlfriend made it clear at the beginning of our relationship that blowjobs were not gonna happen often. She’s done it a few times over the years, but I could see her heart wasn’t really in it. I love going down on her, but she only tolerates it on the way to penetrative sex. She says this is not open for debate, but I would like to talk about why she doesn’t like it. She’s said I don’t have an unattractive penis or anything like that, but the conversation quickly devolves into: “If you wanted blowjobs, you should’ve picked someone else.” I feel like we’re missing out on something—passionate and mutual oral sex—that could be great. Wanting Into Some Head Pick someone else, WISH, but only if getting oral back in your life is more important to you than having this particular girlfriend in your life. She was up-front about her disinterest in oral sex—maybe she had early and unpleasant/traumatic experiences with oral, maybe she tried it and doesn’t like it—and just getting her to talk about it is unlikely to result in long sessions of passionate and mutual oral sex. If you can’t see yourself going without oral for the rest of your life, WISH, either get permission from this girlfriend to get oral elsewhere or get yourself a new girlfriend. I’m 31 and have been with my husband for eight years, married last year, everything’s great—sex life included. But I have started a flirtation with a guy who lives next door. He can see into our kitchen, and I caught him watching me one day, and this was a huge turn-on for me. Now I wear sexy clothes when I’m home alone, and we stare at each other longingly. Sounds weird, I know, but it gets me so hot that sometimes I have to leave the room to masturbate! If anything, this has improved my sex life with my husband, as I feel sexier than ever. But my real worry is this: Am I being unfaithful? I’m really guilt-tripping myself about it. But then I think, what am I doing wrong? I’ve never even spoken to the “other man,” I’m in my own home, and I don’t intend to sleep with the neighbor. Is it possible to enjoy this flirtation in a way that I don’t feel like I’m betraying my husband? Do you think what I’m doing is risky? Wondering If Next-Door Observer Wounds Spouse Let’s say you went to the beach to lie out because you get a secret thrill from getting checked out, WINDOWS, and then you took that sexual energy home and plowed it into your husband. That wouldn’t be a problem. Strangers at the beach make you feel attractive, feeling attractive makes you horny, feeling horny makes you wanna fuck the shit out of your husband. You win, your husband wins, and the strangers at the beach win. Everybody wins. There are two big differences between what’s going on in your kitchen and what went down on my hypothetical beach: proximity and regularity. You’re not going to see the same people at the beach again, WINDOWS, but your neighbor lives right next door. What happens when you finally and inevitably meet him face-to-face? Hopefully nothing, but the odds of something are much higher. And running into your neighbor and not being able to resist the temptation is not the only risk you’re running: You don’t know anything about this guy. Your innocent flirtation could be his dangerous obsession—and one day, you could wake up to find him standing at the foot of your bed. But perhaps the minimal risks—you should be able to keep your hands off him, he’s unlikely to show up at the foot of your bed—are worth the very real rewards, i.e., an improved sex life with your husband. This whole thing might seem less like “cheating lite” if you could tell your husband about how much you enjoy teasing the neighbor and how hot it makes you—for your husband. Then instead of retreating to masturbate alone in another room after showing off in the kitchen, WINDOWS, you can retire to your bedroom and fuck the shit out of your waiting husband. On the Lovecast, Amy Lang discusses how to talk to your kids about sex: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter