In this week’s Savage Love: Orpheum Theater

I was honored to appear with Esther Perel at the Orpheum Theater in Vancouver, British Columbia, a few weeks ago to discuss her new book, The State Of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity. Questions were submitted on cards before the show—some for me, some for Esther, some for both of us—and we got to as many as we could during the event. Here are some of the questions (mostly for me) that we didn’t get to.

Give yourself permission to be bad at it—awful at it, inept and halting and awkward. And remind yourself going in (and out and in and out) that whatever happens, this isn’t the last time you’ll ever have sex. Some people are good at sex right out of the gate, but most people need a little practice before they catch a groove. But nothing guarantees a bad first experience (or bad millionth experience) quite as effectively as faking it. Faking is always a bad idea—faking orgasms, faking interest, faking confidence—so don’t fake. Just be.

I would gift her a mild pot edible and a powerful vibrator.

Your husband has a nice solo stroke session for 44 and a half minutes, and then you climb on top or slide underneath for the last 30 seconds.

Frequently between January 20, 2001, and January 19, 2009, and constantly since January 20, 2017.

It could be both—a weird man thing—but seeing as your boyfriend asked only once, he’s clearly not obsessed. The question presumably made you uncomfortable (which is why you’re asking me about it), and here’s how you shut it down if he ever asks again: “I could ask her who’s better in bed or I could go fuck your brother myself and report back.”

I don’t understand monogamous but sexless marriages. Because if your relationship is monogamously sexless… wouldn’t that mean you don’t have sex only with each other? Setting that aside aside…

Your wife probably and perhaps reasonably fears that opening up your marriage could result in you leaving her for some woman you’re fucking. But if you’re unwilling to go without sex for the rest of your life, you’re going to wind up leaving your wife in order to meet some woman you can fuck. So the thing she fears might happen if you open the relationship up is definitely going to happen if you don’t.

Long-term relationships are nice—I’m happy with mine—but not strictly necessary. They’re not oxygen, iodine, or cannabinoids. The pressure to pair off can make LTRs feel not just necessary but compulsory, and the negative cultural messaging around being single and/or enjoying a series of successful short-term relationships (single people are losers, serial daters “just can’t commit” or are losers) certainly doesn’t help.

Everywhere I go—New York, Chicago, Toronto, Dallas, Los Angeles—I hear the same thing: [Name of city] is a uniquely hard place to date! I also meet happily partnered people everywhere I go, which leaves me disinclined to believe the hype about Vancouver or anywhere else. “This city is a hard place to date!” is often said in frustration by people who haven’t found their .64 yet (the motherfucker they can round up to “The One”) or by people who are doing something wrong—they’re sabotaging their relationships somehow (unresolved personal issues, too many deal breakers, irrational expectations)—and instead of working on their own shit, they’re blaming the city where they happen to live.

Someone opens a mouth—preferably their own—and says the words “I’m bisexual/pansexual.”

If you define “falling for someone else” as a bomb that has to destroy your super fantastic LTR, and you inevitably catch feelings for someone you’re fucking, well, then you’ll have to either refrain from fucking other people or convince yourself that you can love more than one romantic partner at a time.

There’s no such thing as half a kid—at least a live one—so there’s no room for compromise here. Someone has to give or someone has to go.

Wear long-sleeve shirts and lie to your kids—you’re taking a martial arts class while they’re at school, you fell into a blackberry bramble—but tell your friends the truth, lest they think you’re in an abusive relationship.


“People often see an affair as a trauma from which there is no return. And indeed, some affairs deliver a fatal blow to a relationship,” Esther Perel writes in The State Of Affairs. “But others may inspire change that was sorely needed. Betrayal cuts to the bone, but the wound can be healed. Affairs can even become generative for a couple.”

So best-case scenario? Needed change and a regenerated connection. And since some relationships need to end, an affair that leads to a breakup—the affair that delivers the fatal blow—can also be regarded as a best-case outcome. Back to Esther:

“Because I believe that some good may come out of the crisis of infidelity, I have often been asked, ‘So would you recommend having an affair to a struggling couple?’ My response? A lot of people have positive, life-affirming experiences that come along with terminal illness. But I would no more recommend having an affair than I would recommend getting cancer.”

The State Of Affairs is required reading for all couples, not just couples struggling with the fallout from an affair. A relationship that should survive an affair is likelier to survive—and regenerate—if you’ve given the subject some thought before it’s a crisis. Order a copy today.