August 16, 2005
You so rarely answer questions of etiquette in your column, unlike so many of your advice-giving peers. Here's one for you: I've been in a casual sexual relationship with this girl for about four months. (Two months ago, we spoke, reaffirming that all either of us wanted was the casual sex.) I have grown weary of it, though, and am ready to move on. What is the appropriate way to end this affair? Can it be done over e-mail? The phone? Or does having my dick inside her for a quarter year earn this woman the right to be "broken up" with in person?
Wanting Out
You would be within your NSA rights to break things off with this woman by e-mail, WO. The affair has been casual, and you can be equally casual about the end, avoiding the formal, in-person breakup you seem to dread.
But I wouldn't recommend it.
The pool of women willing to have NSA sex is relatively small, WO, and many of these women are friendly with each other, gathering in stylish bars and restaurants to compare notes and swap terribly amusing stories about their sex partners. The relatively remote chance that this woman is friendly with another woman with whom you may want to enjoy casual sex in the future, WO, requires that you end things over the phone, at the very least, or in person.
I've come to terms with the fact that I'm straight and kinky. However, it's not okay with the people I work for and with, and not always okay with the people I date. I've tried hanging out in scenes specifically designed for kinksters, but it doesn't work for me. I find goth funny, and I find people that take neo-paganism, role-play, or calling themselves the "Dark Lord Of Warpedness" seriously funny. What do I do? In theory, it's okay to ask someone if they're kinky and have them refuse, but it's not okay when they feel the need to vent to their friends about it, especially when their friends blab. This is particularly problematic in my case. I live in an area where those who are not entirely straight and married are liable to be prosecuted. There are a few out kinksters in town, but they're extroverts who seem happy to be the local "weirdoes." I'm an introvert and a private person. I don't want to be condemned, or lose my livelihood, or spend the rest of my time with my legs crossed and my other bits untouched. Any advice?
Need One Smart Acronym
Move.
I'm not being glib, NOSA. Pick your kinky ass up and move it to a great big city. The non-kinksters you meet will still gossip about your kinks, and the kink scene will be just as overrun with goths, neo-pagans, role-players, extroverts happy to be the local weirdoes, and a seemingly endless supply of Dark Lords Of Warpedness. (And God bless 'em, NOSA. There wouldn't be an organized kink scene, but for the efforts of the extroverts and weirdoes.) But in a larger city's larger kink scene, NOSA, your odds of finding a nice, shy, retiring kinkster are higher. Your odds of losing your job for being kinky are infinitely smaller in a big city, rendering harmless whatever gossip your kinks inspire.
My girlfriend and I are very happy. We have fun and do kinky stuff in the sack. I have just one complaint about our sex life. When it comes down to her coming, she gets on top and grinds. Now when I say "grind," I mean she sits on me and grinds her clit into my pubic bone. I don't mind it during sex—in fact, I enjoy it—but afterward, it feels like I took a few punches to the pubic region. Any ideas on what to do?
Pummeled In My Pubes
Suffer, bitch. You fuck your girlfriend before she gets down to grinding into you, right? If you fuck her with any passion, PIMP, I guarantee you she feels like she's taken a few punches to the pubic region too.
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I'm 30 and married. My husband and I have been together since we were teens. Over the years, I've been GGG—sex clubs, blowjobs galore, a multitude of positions and scenarios, homemade porn, sex toys, pegging, and I even watched him have sex with someone else. But the other day, looking through our computer bookmarks, I opened a site saved under an innocuous name, and it was porn that seriously GROSSED me out. (I wasn't snooping: This is our home computer, a computer we share, and our bookmarks are all jumbled together.) It's not illegal, but it has really put me off sex with him. I feel weirded out that he gets aroused by that stuff. Is my GGG status revoked? Is there anything to say, or do I let him go so he can be with someone less judgmental?
Reached GGG Limit
You've spent more than a decade with this man, RGGGL, all of your adult life, and yet you're contemplating divorce after finding one—one!—disturbing website bookmarked on your computer? That seems a bit extreme. Go to him, tell him what you found, and before he can say a word, explain that you were so disturbed that you found yourself contemplating divorce. Then demand an explanation.
Maybe he thought the site was gross too—hilariously gross, and he wanted to save the link to terrify his friends. Or maybe he bookmarked it accidentally. Or maybe he's actually into whatever was pictured on that website. But if he is, RGGGL, he'll have the good sense to lie, because you already threatened him with divorce. Then all you need to do to save your marriage is swallow an explanation that may or may not be a lie. The ability to swallow a lie is an important relationship skill, RGGGL, and if you haven't already mastered it, well, there's no time like the present.
I am a black gay male and live in Portland, Oregon. I was in Vancouver, British Columbia, and on Saturday, July 23, I met a guy at a gay club called the Odyssey. We hit it off. Now I wish I had given him my information so we could keep in touch. So I am turning to you, to see if you could help me out. His name was Andrew and he was in his mid-20s. He's a black male too, and there aren't too many gay black men in the world (or in that part of Canada), so I would really like to get in touch with him again. He's going to school and taking classes in physical education.
I realize you've got a lot more to do than help some sorry guy with a sad story. But if you wrote a little message at the end of your column, maybe Andrew might see it. Here's my contact info just in case you do print something: Andrew can reach me at [email protected].
Help a Brother Out
Happy to help, HBO.
Ahem: My six-year-old advice to "Help Me"—the woman who let a dog eat her out and was wondering "How'd that happen?"—pissed off all the dog-fuckers out there. To read what the dog-fuckers have on their minds, go to savagelove/dogfucking.