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Out With It

Joe Newton

I’m a solo polyamorous hetero-romantic pansexual cisgendered man. My serious romantic relationships have all been with cis women, but most of my sex partners are men. Since I bottom when I am with men, most people think I must be closeted or suffer from “internalized homophobia.” This has caused tension with the women I date, ranging anywhere from women not wanting to be with me because they think I am “living a lie” to a recent situation where I was repeatedly “outed” by a bi female poly partner who told people (friends, random gay men) that I was “into guys” and “bi.”

I asked her many times to stop, explaining that while those labels may be accurate when I’m in a kink club or my doctor’s office, it is up to me to decide when to use them and with whom. And because I am hetero-romantic, I do not identify...

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...cause I am hetero-romantic, I do not identify as pan or bi outside of those specific places. I think “LGBTQ” labels identify who one loves, whereas to me it is simply a description as the types of sex I enjoy. I had to end things with this woman over this and when I explained why she never admitted to doing anything wrong. While a part of me wants to just not tell women I date about my other partners, I know I can’t since my having sex with men who also have sex with men has health implications for my female partners. How do I convince women that disclosing my sexual preferences without my consent is wrong?  How can men like me maintain our sexual privacy while responsibly disclosing relevant information to sex partners? Pissed About Non-Necessary Erotic Disclosures The first sentence of your letter is the most LGBTQ shit I’ve ever read in my life. I mean, anyone who needs seven different words with roots in Latin, Greek, and Tumblr — clocking in at 20 syllables — to describe his sexual identity and romantic orientation is a lot of things, PANNED, but straight (single syllable!) isn’t one of them. Which is not to say the people you privately come out to as pan — the women you date — have a right to tell friends and/or random gay men that you’re into guys (which you are) or that you’re bi (which you aren’t, although lay people often use “bi” and “pan” interchangeably). If the fact that you get fucked by men is something you wanna keep private… as private as you can keep something you’re doing in public sex environments (kink clubs)… your preferred sex partners (male) and preferred romantic partners (female) should respect your wishes and keep that shit private. Sadly, PANNED, figuring out who can be trusted with something a partner has a right to know but that we would prefer they keep private isn’t easy or obvious. All too often we only learn someone can’t be trusted after they’ve violated our trust. On the flipside, demanding absolute secrecy about an important part of a relationship — telling our partners they can’t confide in friends they feel they can trust (and might later learn they can’t) — isn’t reasonable or fair. Your right to privacy isn’t absolute, PANNED; your right to privacy has to be balanced against the needs of the women you date to seek advice, perspective, and bullshit detection from their (hopefully) trustworthy friends. Zooming back in on your sexual identity and romantic orientation… maybe I’m not being fair. You didn’t claim to be straight, PANNED, you only claimed not to identify as pan or bi outside of kink clubs and doctors’ offices. But you did deny being LGBTQ — because you don’t fall in love with men — which leaves only straight. Denying you’re LGBTQ because you don’t fall in love with men — you’re not like the other girls — is a weird flex for someone who identifies as pansexual, PANNED, and it’s difficult to see what besides internalized homophobia and/or biphobia would motivate such a flexy denial. If you don’t want people who aren’t currently dicking you down and/or taking a rectal swab to think you’re queer, well, that’s your business. Just as some kinky people prefer to be perceived as vanilla, and some non-monogamous people prefer to be perceived as monogamous, some bi/pan people prefer to be perceived as straight. People are assumed to be straight, vanilla, and monogamous unless they speak up (or unless their loose-lipped girlfriends speak up), and if you’re comfortable with those assumptions — if you’re comfortable benefiting from those assumptions — no one can force you to identify as LGBTQ when you aren’t getting your ass fucked or swabbed. But kinky people can’t claim they’re actually vanilla because they only get whipped on Mondays and people who are non-monogamous can’t claim they’re actually monogamous because they only fuck other people on MDMA — and you can’t claim to be something other than LGBTQ on an absurd technicality like, “I only do queer shit with people I can’t love.” You can’t embrace the LGBTQ label when it’s convenient (taking loads in kink clubs) and deny being LGBTQ when it’s not (on dates with women). Actually, you can do that — that is, in fact, exactly what you have been doing. But you shouldn’t do that, PANNED, not right now, and not anymore. These are perilous times for LGBTQ people, as anyone who’s been paying attention to the news knows. Anti-gay, anti-trans, and anti-drag laws are being passed all over the country, books are being banned, Pride events are being met with increasingly menacing protests. LGBTQ people are under siege, PANNED, and the people attacking queer people aren’t going to make distinctions between hetero-romantic queers and other queers. So, your queer ass isn’t just wanted in the kink clubs, PANNED, your queer ass is needed on the barricades. Grow up and show up. My boyfriend and I have struggled to connect sexually more or less since the beginning of our long-distance relationship more than a year and a half ago. First the issue seemed to be condoms, which he couldn’t stand, but now that I’ve gotten an IUD his desire for sex has completely plummeted and I spend my nights reading through r/deadbedrooms subreddit posts. He says “this usually happens” to him after about a year but he wants to stay together and work through it. But in all honestly, he seems unbothered by the lack of sex. I started snooping — I am aware that is super problematic and something I need to work on — and learned he had recently watched porn featuring exclusively Asian women and then found out he has been contacting random Chinese women via a social platform and asking to meet IRL so he could “learn more about Chinese language, culture, and food.” This just seems so off. I’m not anti-porn and I understand we all have types, but I’m weirded out by the possible fetishization and lack of transparency on his end. Big red flag? Perplexed And Sadly Sexless That red flag is so big you can’t see the other red flags behind it. You’ve wasted a year and a half on this guy, PASS, and you shouldn’t waste another minute on him. And if it took a little snooping for you to figure that out — if it took snooping for you to see that your boyfriend has been lying to you from the start and that he was prepared to tell you (and other women) bigger and worse lies — you don’t have to waste any time feeling bad about the snooping. DTMFA. I’m a cis woman that loves to go to sex clubs to try new things. The last event I went to, someone put his penis and balls inside of my pussy, which was such a great experience. But now I am thinking this was a mistake on my end because although he wore a condom on his penis, there isn’t a “ball condom,” at least so far as I know. I want to try this again, but I also want to do it in a low-risk way to keep myself and my other partners safe. Is this considered a risky sexual practice? I know that balls normally are uncovered, but normally there isn’t nearly so much contact as having them inside of me. Somewhat Apprehensive Concerning Kink’s Estimated Danger A stranger’s balls slapping against your vulva (or your taint, or your asshole, or your chin) while he fucks you while wearing a condom on his dick vs. a stranger’s balls inserted into you pussy while he’s fucking you while wearing a condom on his dick… doesn’t make an enormous difference where the risks of STI transmission are concerned. Viruses such as HPV, herpes, or mpox can be transmitted via skin-to-skin contact regardless of whether his balls are inside your vagina or being pressed up against your vulva. (Your risk of contracting mpox during straight sex is very, very low — but if the men at the sex clubs you frequent also have sex with each other, they should get the two-dose mpox vaccine and so should you.) The location of infection can make an STI harder to spot, harder to treat, and more painful to endure. If the dude shoving his dick and balls into you has a small wart or sore from syphilis, herpes, or mpox tucked away under his balls, you may not realize that it’s there. And a genital wart inside your vaginal canal may go unnoticed at first, thereby delaying treatment, SACKED, whereas you or one of your other partners are likelier to spot one on your labia right away. (And if you aren’t already vaccinated against HPV, the virus that causes genital warts, get vaccinated for that too!) In the final accounting, SACKED, letting someone put his balls inside you elevates your risk of contracting STIs that are passed through skin-to-skin contact — but these are STIs you’re already at risk of contracting during casual sex even when using condoms and, depending on how often you frequent sex clubs, STIs you have probably been exposed to before. The added risk here, again, is the potential location of an outbreak. Ultimately, only you can decide if the reward/thrill of having someone’s balls deep inside you is worth the additional risk. If so, go for it. If not, don’t. P.S. While none of my gentleman callers has ever shoved his balls into me, I would imagine it would be a lot easier for a condom to unintentionally slip off if someone somehow managed to get his/her/their dick and balls all the way inside — so, maybe consider using a female/insertable condom next time. P.P.S. Recognizing that we all make mistakes, SACKED, the right time to think about the safety of our other partners is before someone shoves his balls in us, not after. Send your question right here on Savage.Love. mailbox@savage.love

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