Struggle Session: Come See HUMP (And Me!) This Weekend in Seattle!

...230; I have a comment rather than a question, Dan. I listened to your interview on the 1A podcast on Sex Week and wanted to share some insight into why 50 Shades of Grey was so popular with 40-something women — or at least why it was with my bookclub of 40-somethings. (We called an emergency meeting to discuss the series where we set a record for bottles of wine consumed at a single meeting.) Basically, we found the sex scenes so poorly written that we were paging through them, just looking for, hoping for, a plot. But what we DID find that turned us on was a man that was completely in charge, one who took care of everything. For most of us, the ones working full-time and planning the vacations and picking which restaurant to go to, and making the doctors appointments for everyone, etc., the fantasy was just having a man who took care of things. He just made decisions and made things happen. Just wanted to share that perspective with you. Loved your insights on the podcast! Keep doing the important work of helping people with their relationships! I’m not buying what you’re selling, Shannon. While it’s true that working women do more than fair share of the household labor —  and don’t even get me started on straight men and their weaponized incompetence (says the guy who has to ask his husband to turn on the television for him) — I don’t think 200 million copies Fifty Shades of Grey would’ve been sold if Christian was just really good at making dinner reservations and scheduling doctors appointments. Women weren’t running out to stationary stores to buy weekly planners for their husbands after reading Fifty Shades, they were running to sex shops to buy restraints and paddles. So, while everyone in your book group might’ve skipped the sex scenes on the way to the part where Christian booked a helicopter ride all by himself, most Fifty Shades readers devoured those books for kinky sex. I took a question a couple of weeks back from a recently widowed caller who was intensely horny but not sure she was ready to have sex. I ran some advice for her in last week’s Struggle Session from another widowed listener. Another email came from a widower this week and, while it’s long, I wanted to share it… I was also widowed at 52 and I have a widow’s fire tale to tell. ‘ When I lost my husband to cancer, it was awful, and devastating. His death was something I braced for for years… knowing it was coming but fighting for one more treatment, one more year, one more month with him by my side. When it finally happened, my emotions were INTENSE. While many people become depressed from grief, I actually became a bit hypomanic. Intense bouts of grieving interspersed with unreasonable euphoria. I wanted to live, I wanted to thrive, I wanted to sob, I wanted to blast my music and go dancing, I wanted to play “Time in a Bottle” on repeat while crying over his sweatshirt, and I wanted sex. Badly. ‘ The desire was so intense and so intrusive, that four months after my husband passed away, I created a Bumble account.  I told my grief counselor and I was sure she’d tell me I was acting way too soon — or even being reckless — but she was totally supportive. “The apps are great,” she said. “You just need patience, and a sense of humor.” ‘ So, I went on my adventure. I was upfront in my profile that I was recently widowed and didn’t know what I wanted. I had lots of conversations, lots of sexy texts, and texts that went nowhere. I had a bunch of dates, I had ick moments and make out moments and moments when I had to hurt someone’s feelings. I got laid (yay!). When it was good, I felt amazing and alive. The hurt that I felt when things didn’t work out was magnified and intensified by grief. And I knew I was vulnerable. I asked myself if I was avoiding grief and looking to fill the hole in my heart. I wondered if I should be doing this at all? And then! I got an email from a man I’d known for many years. He wasn’t a close friend, but he was someone in my community that I hadn’t seen for years. It was a very sweet condolence email saying he only just learned about my husband’s death. He said he remembered my husband fondly and then offered to talk if I ever wanted to as he had recently lost his wife to cancer. Turns out, he found out about my  husband’s passing because he saw my profile on Bumble. Which he’d just joined himself. He said he didn’t know what he was doing on the apps and would be happy to talk about that too. Long story short, we met up, we fell in love, and now we’ve been together for several years, and it is wonderful. To the recently widowed caller: You need to navigate your own storm. Consider all the risks and all your fears and feelings. I recommend writing — journaling or writing erotica to explore your feelings. Getting on the apps while you are vulnerable and still grieving is definitely not what most people would recommend — I’m sure there are people who could tell you horror stories — but here’s at least one story where it worked out like a beautiful, slutty fairytale. Be safe, take care of yourself in every way possible, take your time, and love yourself. Wishing you healing and happiness. Such wonderful advice — thank you so much for sending it in. Okay, here’s this week’s letter… My partner and I have been together for eight years. We met in high school, and I love him very much. He was my first in every way. We’ve been happy together, and we’re usually pretty good at talking through our problems. ‘ From the beginning, we’ve been theoretically polyamorous, but neither of us had ever actually met anyone who really sparked our interest. We also never had a clear talk about boundaries, assuming that we would figure it out as we went. I started actively dating about a year ago since he was no longer interested in sex, and didn’t want to put in the work into changing that. Anytime I asked about it, he encouraged me to fulfill my needs elsewhere. About a month ago, I met another couple that I really, really like. We ended up having an unprotected threesome. While the sex was ok-d, the unsafe sex part wasn’t and violated an agreement my partner and I had. ‘ I then became infatuated and didn’t realize my partner was feeling sidelined until it was too late. I don’t think I communicated as much as I should have through all my new and exciting feelings. He says I broke his trust and that he doesn’t feel like I prioritize him the way he prioritizes me. ‘ I’ve already slowed things way down with the other couple, offering to be friends only. We only had sex the once. I feel I have a deep connection to them, something I’ve never experienced with anyone other than my partner. Even so, my partner still gets hurt every time I see them. He wants me to show him, not just tell him, that he and our relationship matters to me. He also wants to see that our relationship is more important to me than the one I started a month ago. ‘ I want to rebuild his trust, but I don’t really know what that’s supposed to look like. I’m genuinely sorry, and I’m trying to do the right things. Am I able to keep the couple in my life just as friends, or do I need to cut them off completely while my partner and I work through our issues? How do we move forward from here? ‘ We’re In Our Rebuilding Era Oh… I definitely have thoughts about this one. Jesus Christ, do I have thoughts. But I’m gonna hold my tongue — or sit on my hands here — and let Savage Love readers go first. So, if you’ve got some advice for WIORE, drop it in the comments.