Welcome to Struggle Session, where I respond to comments from Lovecast listeners and Savage Love readers. (Forgive me for not getting this post up yesterday! I hit “save” instead of “publish” after it was ready and didn’t realize what I’d done — mistakes were made — until the middle of the night.)
Vin sent a question via email…
Sixty-five-year-old trans guy here. Not a relationship question in the strictest sense, unless you include my relationship with my sanity. Your talk at the top of the post-election episode convinced me that there is no one who gets it more than you do. So I ask: With what is coming, I think it’s vital that we keep ourselves informed as they begin dismantling our country. I can’t bury my head in the sand… but doing a quick check-in morphs into doomscrolling and I still have PTSD from last time, when I woke up every morning fortifying myself for whatever he’d fucked up overnight. Simply put, Dan, what should I do? What should we do to stay aware of what’s going on, yet not fall into despair or panic?
I promised my husband, my boyfriend, and the person sitting next to me on the bus the day after the election I would stop reading the news and stop listening to politics podcasts for a while. I promised to check the fuck out — I promised myself I would check the fuck out — until the midterms in 2026, a promise I broke into a million little pieces in under 24 hours.
So, maybe what you need right now, Vin, maybe what a lot of people out there need right now, are some designated doomscrollers. Just like designated drivers made it safe to get go out and get shitfaced because you had a sober person around to drive you home at the end of the night, a designated doomscroller would make it safe for you to check the fuck out — to take a break from news and politics — because you had a probably-not-sober-but-checked-in person around to let you know when you need to check the fuck back in.
Seeing as I’ve already returned to doomscrolling, Vin, I volunteer to be your designated doomscroller. If there’s something you need to know — if something comes up we can do something about before November of 2026 — I will let you know.
Says Cruella de Phil about my rollicking convo with Chump Lady…
The funny thing is that while Chump Lady pretends that Dan and Esther Perel’s POV on cheating is mainstream, in reality mainstream culture is both harshly punitive and extremely expansive in what it considers cheating. Go on Reddit relationship advice subs and you’ll regularly see mobs of commenters demanding that people dump their partners for the crime of having an opposite-sex friend or for looking at porn. Chump Lady’s viewpoint — that cheating is black and white — is the vast majority opinion!
A lot of people enjoyed my spirited convo with Tracy Schorn, a.k.a. Chump Lady, but NoCuteName has had it with one of my go-to examples of cheating…
Come the fuck on, Dan! If your only example is a person who gets one hand job while out of town on a business trip in the context of a 20-year marriage with heretofore perfect fidelity… well, maybe that’s happened. But that’s a convenient and over-simplified [example]. It’s old. It’s tiresome; it’s self-serving; it’s disingenuous. It is very, very far from what most people experience or talk about when they talk about cheating. (Apologies to Raymond Carver.)
Most people who cheat aren’t merely getting a hand job, and it doesn’t happen after twenty years of impeccable monogamy. I have several friends who have cheated on the women that became their wives for decades, starting before the marriage. I once fell in love with one of those guys.
For the record: That handjob — the one some guy got on a business trip after 20 years of marriage and monogamy — isn’t my go-to example of cheating. It’s my go-to example of a particular kind of cheating that a wronged spouse might be able to (but is by no means required to) forgive. And when I cite that handjob, it’s almost always paired with an example of the kind of cheating a wronged spouse could never forgive: “If he got a handjob on a business trip after twenty years of marriage and successful monogamy, you might be able to forgive that — you might be able to past that — but if he fucked your sister on your wedding night? Yeah, that’s not something you can forgive or get past.”
What I’m trying to communicate isn’t that cheating is trivial, NoCuteName, or that impulse-purchase handjobs are what most cheating looks like. What I’m trying to get across is that cheating — like so much else — exists on a spectrum. And just as a impulse-purchase handjob on a business trip (possibly forgivable) isn’t meant to be a representative example of cheating or cheaters, a man fucking his newly minted sister-in-law on his wedding night (completely unforgivable) isn’t meant to be a representative example of all cheating or all cheaters. Both examples are extremes; they sit at the tail ends of the the cheating bell curve, with most cases falling into the bulging, ambiguous centers.
My point isn’t that cheating is trivial, but that incidents of cheating can and should be judged on a case-by-case basis. And I’m not out here telling people to round all cases of cheating down to a single and forgivable handjob on a business trip, but Tracy Schorn is out there telling her followers to round all cases cheating up to what her husband did to her (secret second family, gaslighting, physical risk, threats of murder). While not every relationship where someone has cheated can or should be saved, some can and some should. Which is why I think my advice is more helpful than Schorn’s catastrophizing. (Schorn’s thoughts on her appearance no the Lovecast are here.)
Therapy Jeff and I both agree: Dumping someone who voted for Trump is a perfectly reasonable thing to do — hell, it may be a moral imperative — but one commenter on Instagram (actually, more than one) disagreed:
You gonna dump your partner because one prefers low fat milk? No. You argue about it, you get over it, you agree to disagree and move on. Neither candidate is exactly perfect and there’s been a lot of gaslighting and general BS from both sides. Move on.
Okay, for the sake of argument let’s say that I prefer whole milk and my husband prefers 2%. Here’s how we might be able to work that out: we would stock more than one kind of milk in our fridge. Nothing to argue about: I have my milk, he has his milk. And if we ever got into an argument about milk, we would remind ourselves that MILK PREFERENCES ARE FUCKING TRIVIAL. But since we can’t have more than one president at a time — and since who controls the White House is NOT FUCKING TRIVIAL — and a vote for Trump (as opposed to a preference for skim) could put the lives of people I care about at risk along with reproductive freedom, marriage equality, NATO, Medicare, Medicaid, porn, and on and on. So, unlike milk preferences, which are about taste, political preferences are a statement of values… and you’re allowed to dump a motherfucker whose “values” offend or appall you. (For the record: My husband doesn’t drink milk and always votes Democratic.)
Speaking of the election: Sessalee on BlueSky appreciated my conversation with Peter Rothpletz…
Your most recent episode of Sex and Politics is one of the best reviews of what happened in this election I’ve heard, Dan, and I think it would be highly beneficial for you to make that available to all listeners so we can share that. I think you and your guest did an incredible job of laying out where we really are and being honest, without being s or unnecessarily despondent. Either way, thank you for it.
…but MardiGras did not:
Really didn’t like this episode. Sorry. Stopped halfway through. I like that I’m a pretty decent human being. I enjoy being generally kind, and I think we need more of that, not less. I don’t think I should need to turn into a trash human to prove something to conservatives.
InspiredDesires‘ response to MardiGras captured my feelings exactly.
In case you missed it: SOFT — the LW who was looking forward to her first MMF threesome — jumped into the comments thread with an after-action report:
Threesome was amazing! Everyone got twosome attention, lots of group play, so much cock sucking and everyone fucked everyone. Whenever anyone felt left out, they’d either start touching themselves or find a cock to suck to get back in the action. I (F) definitely had to assert myself a bit here and there, the boys move fast, but it was fun to be disinhibited with them and sometimes you just need to jump on a cock. My partner and I each took a bathroom break and it was fun to come out of the bathroom and into a brand new scene. My scene: My partner was getting his cock sucked in the kitchen with the fridge door open while he poured himself a fresh drink. To cap it off, the next day cutie texted to ask us if we ever go to stand up comedy shows. I think he might want to date us, she says giggling.
I’m glad it went so well, SOFT! And I’m glad you asserted yourself by jumping on a cock when a twosome went on too long — I’m glad you reinserted the action back into yourself — because demanding dick is much better (and so much more fun) than sulking about dick. (And to everyone else: Always happy to read and share a good after-action report!)
Alright, here’s the Savage Love question I wanna to toss out to you this week. This question isn’t too long — this question is absolutely column-worthy — but next week’s column is a repeat (taking Thanksgiving off!) and the column after that is a Quickies and this reader needs to hear from us before he does something stupid…
I used to go to massage parlors and get erotic massages. Never went beyond a hand job. I would do it once month and then not go for several months. I’m sure it related to stress in my life and also something deeper in my relationship. My wife and I have been together for 25 years, we’re monogamous, and we have a lot of fun together (travel, music, theater, hiking, biking, exploring), but we’ve never had a great sex life. It was always pretty vanilla. Neither of us were every very open about our fantasies or kinks. Our families of origin never really talked about sex and kept it hidden and taboo. We never really talked about sex either.
After we had our second kid, sex went from once every two week to once a month and then once every two months. For a while I satisfied myself with porn and shower jacks. Then one day I found myself at a massage parlor. I mean, I went there after a trip to the hardware store, but it just was there, it wasn’t planned, it wasn’t researched, it just kinda happened. Massage parlors had been in my subconscious for a while — “happy ending” massages were a regular joke among my married straight male friends — but I’d never been to one.
I ended up at this one and got a massage that ended with a happy ending. Instead of guilt I felt relief and at peace. That began a pattern of going to massage parlors 2-4 times a year and getting happy ending massages. For some reason I didn’t feel guilty about it, or even shame. Even though I was keeping it hidden from my partner. I rationalized it that it was safe and I didn’t love any of these workers. It was transactional and it provided me with relief.
Anyway…
Three years ago, I went and got a massage and suddenly felt incredible guilt and shame about it. I felt like I was a bad person and a shitty partner and deep down that my actions were irredeemable and unforgivable. That was the last time. I don’t intend to ever go to another massage parlor ever again. My wife and I still only have sex once every other month or so. But I some days I wake up ruminating on shame and guilt. Other days I focus on the present and how my experience taught me to pay attention to how fortunate I am to have a loving wife and family.
I’m sure you get these questions a lot. There’s a lot of guilt and shame in the world.
I’ve been in individual therapy for more than three years, slowly untangling what my motivations were and the “why” around these visits. I feel seen by my therapist and I better understand how my feelings of loneliness and lack of connection played out in these massage parlor visits and I’ve developed coping skills that help me not seek out massage parlors when these feelings arise. I even feel less shame — because I’m human and I made mistakes, but I learned and I won’t make these particular mistakes anymore.
But the guilt rears its head occasionally, sometimes for days on end, sometimes not for a few weeks or months. It’s been several years since I visited one of these parlors. Should I tell my wife and face the consequences? I don’t know how she would react. I don’t want to cause her any pain and suffering for her or put my kids through a divorce. I know I was selfish for my past actions. Is telling selfish now or does she deserve to know? If I do tell her, how do we move forward? Or should I live in the now and focus on letting go of past?
Guy Under Illusions Less Twisted
GUILT needs advice! STAT! Let him have it in the comments!
P.S. But I’m just going to drop this here and encourage GUILT to read the “burden of knowing” section twice. And while I realize therapists aren’t supposed to tell their clients what to do… if there was ever a client who needed to be told to keep his fucking mouth shut, it’s GUILT! And since his therapist can’t tell him to keep his mouth shut, we’re going to have to do it, gang! (You’re not obligated to tell him to keep his mouth shut, of course. Members of #TeamTell are feel free to make their case.)
P.P.S. And as ever… if ewe sea a typo, please fag it in a comment!