Roughly Speaking

...> You and the fiancée are obviously capable of communicating about varsity-level sex play, SEAN; your track record with bondage and rougher sex demonstrates that. Now you just have to use the same interpersonal skills that made your past kinky fuckfests possible—along with the same respect for limits, boundaries, and each other—to negotiate and realize your girlfriend’s edgy-but-thoroughly-common fantasy. I recommend reading “Rape Fantasy: How to Carry It Out Safely,” a long and thoughtful post at Slut Lessons (slutlessons.wordpress.com), an engaging sex blog that’s sadly no longer being updated. The first recommendation from Educated Slut, the site’s anonymous author: Maybe we shouldn’t call them “rape fantasies” at all. “A rape fantasy is almost invariably more about forced sex and not a desire to actually BE raped by someone,” writes Educated Slut. “Very few people have the desire to be put through the physical and emotional trauma of a real rape. This is the primary reason I refer to this as ‘forced sex fantasy’ rather than rape fantasy; it just gives the wrong impression to some people.” You might to be one of those people, SEAN. You seem to be under the impression that there’s something inherently more dangerous about realizing/role-playing your way through a forced-sex scenario. And it may be more dangerous and/or triggering on an emotional level—talking through any past traumas or fears will be important—but slapping the label “rape fantasy” on rough(er) sex shouldn’t result in you having some sort of out-of-body experience that leads you to go apeshit on your helpless fiancée. Talk things through in advance, just like you have before, agree on a safe word—a word that stops the action cold should either of you utter it—and take it slow the first few times you go for it. I’m a single straight guy and this is probably going to sound really stupid, but… I basically stumbled over the cuckold fetish and I can’t get it out of my mind. I’ve tried to stay away from it because I’m pretty sure you aren’t supposed to feel like garbage after enjoying porn. But I can’t get it out of my head. It’s worrying, since I fear that one day it might end up spoiling things when I fall in love with someone since I’m a bit of a jealous person. The idea of a cheating woman is really hot in spite of all of that. But there’s this lingering feeling of disgust surrounding the whole thing. Is it possible to have a fetish you hate? Baffled About Romantic Future Don’t you just hate it when someone leaves a fetish sitting out and then you stumble over it and—bam!—you hit your head and when you come to you’ve got a brand-new fetish? Yeah, no. We don’t know exactly where people’s fetishes and kinks come from—how or why someone’s erotic imagination snaps on an inanimate object (high heels, leather gear, rubber masks) or a particular sexual scenario (cuckolding, role-play, outdoor sex)—but we can safely say that people don’t stumble into their fetishes or kinks. Forgive me for being a pedantic asshole, BARF—I’m sure you didn’t mean you literally stumbled over a cuckold. But misinformed, sex-negative, kink-negative pornophobes routinely talk about fetishes and kinks—and fetish/kink porn—like a moment’s exposure can transform an innocent person with purely vanilla tastes into a horned-up, slobbering, gimp-outfit-wearing kink monster. And that’s not the way it happens. So what did happen to you, BARF? You found some cuckold porn online, and your dick said: “DUDE. THIS IS IT. THIS IS WHAT WE’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR. RUN WITH THIS.” Your particular kink was already in there somewhere, already rattling around in your erotic subconscious, but you couldn’t articulate it—it didn’t take shape—until you finally “stumbled over” the images and narratives you were looking for all along. And your kink, like the kinks of so many other people (see SEAN’s fiancée, above), seems to be grounded in insecurity and fear—you’re the jealous type, you fear being cheated on, and your erotic imagination/reptile brain took your fears and spun them into a kink. Congrats. On to your question: Yes, you can have a fetish you hate, i.e., you can have a kink you don’t want to act on because the fantasy can’t be realized for moral or ethical reasons (it involves children, nonconsensual acts, Donald Trump) or because you’re fairly certain doing so would suck for emotional or physical reasons (potentially traumatizing, physically dangerous, Donald Trump). But if your only issue with your kink are those lingering feelings of disgust, BARF, those feelings may diminish the more time you spend thinking/jacking about your newly revealed kink. Time will determine if your feelings of disgust are merely your run-of-the-mill, beneficial-to-overcome kink negativity or if they’re a sign cuckolding should remain a go-to masturbatory fantasy for you, BARF, without ever become a cheating-woman reality. I’ve been dating a girl for a while, and I take our relationship seriously. Sometimes sex is a little difficult because of her pubic hair. She shaves it close to the labia, which is right where my cock is going in and out, and it’s very prickly. I don’t mean lightly prickly—it’s like a bunch of wooden chopsticks have been filed down and shaped into a cylinder, and I’ve been asked to let them clench my dick. I brought it up once and tried to gently suggest a waxing or letting the hair grow back. She didn’t want to talk about it. I get it: Nobody likes having their genital area critiqued. But the problem keeps recurring. I understand that I don’t really have the right to dictate her grooming habits. And if waxing is out of the question for her—maybe there are philosophical implications I’m not up to speed on—how can I suggest that maybe there are other solutions? Seeks Counsel Regarding Agonizing Penile Exfoliation The only solution is your girlfriend letting her pubic hair grow back permanently, SCRAPE, since waxed labia will eventually become stubble-covered labia. Here’s how you suggest letting those pubes grow back: Start by letting your girlfriend know you’re aware that women have had to endure millennia of misogynistic/religious garbage about their genitals—but you shouldn’t have to silently endure painful sex because that garbage has made discussing her choices around genital grooming unnecessarily fraught. This isn’t about appearance or preferences or clashing philosophies about pubic grooming. You’re in pain. Address the matter directly. On the Lovecast, Peter Staley on the benefits and dangers of PrEP: savagelovecast.com. mail@savagelove.net @fakedansavage on Twitter