Struggle Session is supposed to go up on Thursday… but I figure it’s still Thursday somewhere or, if not, it will be Thursday again soon, right?
Okay, let’s struuuuuuuuggle…
About MINO…
So many of your responses are right on, and I have enjoyed reading your column for years because of your insight and knowledge on all things sexual. But I think you may have missed the mark with MINO. I am a therapist specializing in trauma, and my first guess would be that her husband was severely sexually abused as a child. Children who are sexually abused can react in adulthood by becoming either hypersexual or hyposexual. The thing is, if the abuse happened early, he may not even remember it — this is common — and may have no idea why he has this PTSD avoidance response to the possibility of sex. Even if he were to start therapy, it could take a long time to uncover what his sex avoidance is all about.
The other possibility is that he has low testosterone, or maybe that too. Sexual abuse can really mess with the adrenals, which can then mess with hormonal balances. In your position I would have told MINO to try to get her husband to a doctor for hormone testing, and also to a therapist who specializes in trauma. She might still decide to leave him, but at least there’s a chance he could start healing what may also be very distressing for him too
Keep up the GOOD work, Dan! You are a voice of truth and sanity in a world of the exact opposites.
I suppose the issue could be repressed memories of sexual abuse (which some argue are bullshit)… or the issue could be low testosterone… or the issue could be that this guy is gay. (I agree with BiDanFan: “MINO, I reckon there is a 99% chance your husband is gay. Round it up and proceed accordingly.”) But regardless of whether MINO’s husband is hypersexual, hyposexual, homosexual, etc., I don’t think it’s MINO’s job to fix her husband. This man was not in good working order — he was not fit for use — and I suspect he knew it before he married MINO and the sooner MINO leaves him, the better.
This message for MINO arrived via email…
MINO — I have a very, very good friend who was in exactly your situation. She stayed married for five years, after always being the one to initiate sex that, like this guy, they never ended up having. They divorced, and while she leads a full life, I know she regrets having given five years to that guy, feeling rejected when all she wanted was exactly what they agreed on (sex on their wedding night, sex after). Losing your virginity at 30 isn’t the big deal that culture makes it out to be BUT that constant feeling of rejection is. Please don’t stay because it’ll be “embarrassing” or “inconvenient” to get out of this marriage so soon. Inconvenience, embarrassment, and regret are temporary. Staying with this guy, attempting to make a life with him after he repeatedly made clear that he will never have sex with you? That will cause lasting damage to your spirit and sense of possibility. Also, because of knowing my friend’s situation, I can say with conviction that it’s not you. I always thought my friend’s ex was gay and, for whatever reason(s), he was too afraid to admit it. That might well be the case here, but, as Dan said, it’s something, and whatever it is, it’s not worth losing any more of your life or energy over.
Kindness is Key shared some excellent advice for MINO if she wants to try and make it work — which is not what I would do in her situation (and MINO did ask me what I would do) — and Katybar shared her own story and the long road back from the same kind of sexual rejection MINO is experiencing. Says Jonathan…
MINO: Are you physically attracted to him? You’ve mentioned oral sex and a singular handjob, so if it was a micropenis situation or something like that, I assume you would have mentioned it. Regardless, this should’ve been an ultimatum 22 months ago. “Tell me the real issue and commit to working to fix it, or we’re done.”
Here’s my biggest worry about any effort to make this marriage work: MINO issues an ultimatum and Mr. MINO gets his ass into therapy and/or gets his testosterone levels checked… and he manages to come through with just enough sex to mollify and impregnate MINO… and then reverts to form once MINO is well and truly fucked, i.e. once she has kids and and leaving her husband is even harder than it is now.
One last bit of advice for MINO from Karl via email…
The wife in the 2-year sexless marriage should see a lawyer. If they never consummated the marriage, probably a (secular) annulment is possible. Hope this helps.
SloMoPoMo made a great point about tolyamory in last week’s Struggle Session…
Ken.Kle comes to accept that there is such a thing as tolyamory, in that one partner is tolerating, but maintains that there are no tolyamorous couples. I don’t think that follows. There are relationships where both partners are cheating. I don’t see why two CPsOS couldn’t be tolerating one another’s cheating. Maybe revenge cheating could have a name? Ultioamorous?
The kind of tolyamorous relationship you describe — two cheaters cheating on each other, both choosing to putting up with it — already has a name: egalitarian polyamory (ET), as Dr. Thouin categorized it in the “Flavors of Tolyamory” IG post that kicked off this convo. (“Both partners occasionally engage in discreet sexual encounters outside the relationship without investing time or energy in the emotional labor of polyamory.”) Still, it doesn’t feel quite right to describe a relationship characterized by punitive and retaliatory affairs as “egalitarian,” as that term implies a healthy and balanced fairness. But SloMoPoMo is right: couples where both partners are toly do exist.
Asks Thingamajig…
I think the objection to naming tolyamory is that it normalizes it and gives cover and perhaps even suggests strategies for CPOSs who would like to back their partners into a tolyamorous corner. Is that a fair charge?
Hm… that strikes me as a slightly incoherent charge. I mean, coercive forces might convince someone to tolerate their partner’s cheating. (Dr. Thouin unpacked them in her post: financial, emotional, and social dependence.) But I don’t think giving this a name — the reaction a person might have after learning they’re being cheated on — provides cheaters with additional leverage. How would that even work? Cheaters who think they’re getting away with it can’t throw the word in the faces of the people they’re cheating on without admitting to the cheating they think they’re getting away with, right? How do you back someone into a corner with something you can’t even bring up?
And the kind of financial, emotional, and social dependence that do back people into corners aren’t unique to toly relationships — those forces keep people in shitty monogamous relationships, shitty open relationships, shitty sexless relationships, etc.
Says Mark via email…
Was that Dan clutching his pearls for the poor foot fetishists who theoretically may have felt done dirty by a rogue video played in HUD offices last week? A video that portrayed Trump exactly as he is, a pathetic lickspittle serving his master in one of the most subservient ways possible?
Setting aside the general ickiness of the AI-generated video, Dan, save your concern for the people Trump and Musk are doing dirty by demolishing HUD. I work for a nonprofit housing agency that receives HUD money for things like building affordable rental housing, sheltering homeless families, and helping low-income people of color buy their first homes.
We’ve already had some contracted funding clawed back by HUD since the administration began its rampage to destroy American civic institutions — and they are just getting warmed up. Hundreds of new affordable apartments are in jeopardy in our region alone. Family homeless shelters will close. You get where this is going.
So yeah, that grody video of Trump gobbling the toes of his master should be played on every screen in the country — imagined fee-fees of foot fetishists be damned.
I was not clutching my pearls on behalf of the foot fetishists, Mark, I was pretending to take umbrage — I was joking about being offended — so that I could help spread the word about the video and make sure as many people as possible saw it as possible. So we’re on the same team here!
And finally… here’s this week’s reader-submitted question that isn’t going to make it into the column…
I’m a trans dude in college. I don’t pass as cis consistently, but I come across as a dude enough that I pretty reliably get treated as one. Until recently, I was a complete asshole because of this. Basically I was like, “Well, I’m masculine enough to get treated as a Real Man, the system works for me, fuck whoever else.” I hung out with rightwing dudes, laughed at their gay jokes, sneered at the more obviously queer kids, professed great admiration for Elon Musk, called people slurs online, and was absolutely certain I was winning.
I have spent the past couple months realizing I was a piece of shit and trying to figure out what to do. But here I am, and some of these asshole dudebros who considered me “one of the good ones” and said so (they know I’m trans) are still in my social circle. What’s the least evil thing to do here? Do I just kick them out of my life entirely and say I don’t want to hang around with people who act like that anymore? Do I keep them around and just stop going along with their douchebaggery and shut it down when I can? Does that ever work? Is there a way to do this which will actually get them to rethink things?
On one hand it feels like a crazy opportunity to try to get them to be less evil, because they do legit respect me as far as I know. On the other hand, I feel like I’m becoming a slightly shittier person with every moment I spend around them, and I really do not want that anymore.
Buddies Behaved Badly
Anyone have any experience outgrowing friends? Or realizing your friends are assholes and you’ve been a “pick me” queer sucking up to straight assholes? How did you come back from that? Share your advice in the comments.
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