This week in Savage Love: The phone job

A male friend—not my best friend but a close one—told me his wife was really attracted to me, another male, and asked if I was attracted to her. His wife is an incredibly hot woman and I thought it was a trick question. I read your column and listen to the Savage Lovecast, Dan, so I know there are guys out there who want other men to sleep with their wives, of course, but I didn’t want to risk offending this friend by saying “FUCK YEAH” too quickly. After he convinced me it wasn’t a trick, I told him that of course I wanted to have sex with his wife. She’s incredibly beautiful and a really great person. I told him that I was not at the least bit bisexual and not into MMF threesomes and he told me he wouldn’t even be there. He just wanted to hear all the details later—and hear them from me, not her.

I’ve slept with his wife four times since and the sex we’ve been having is phenomenal for both of us. But the talks I have afterwards with my friend make me uncomfortable. We’ve gotten on the phone later in the day or the next day and I give him the details and insult him a little, which he likes, and honestly none of that is the problem. What makes me uncomfortable is that I can hear him beating off during these phone calls. Which makes me feel like I’m having phone sex with a guy. I’m not comfortable with this and I feel like our friendship has become sexualized in a way that just feels unnatural for me. The one time we met in person to talk after I fucked his wife he was visibly aroused throughout our entire conversation. I would like to keep fucking my friend’s wife and she wants to keep fucking me but I don’t want to talk with my friend about it afterwards. Shouldn’t it be enough for him to just know I’m fucking her?
Distressed Aussie Chafes Under Cringe Kink

P.S. This is his thing, not hers. She loves having sex with me but the calls to her husband don’t do anything for her.

It’s obviously not enough for him to know you’re fucking his wife. If that was enough for him, DACUCK, he wouldn’t want to get on the phone with you afterwards.

This is a consent question. If your friend consents to his wife having sex with other men on the condition that he hears about it afterwards—and hears about it from those other men—that condition has to be met for the sex she’s having with other men to be consensual. And while the calls afterwards aren’t a turn-on for his wife, DACUCK, if those calls make it possible for her to sleep with other men and she enjoys doing that, well then, the calls actually are doing something for her, too. You’re not obligated to have these conversations with your friend if they make you uncomfortable—because of course you’re not—but if you were to refuse, DACUCK, then your friend might withdraw his consent for you to fuck his wife. Your friend and his wife might be willing to revise these conditions just for you, DACUCKS, so it couldn’t hurt to ask. But if he says no, you don’t get to fuck his wife anymore. Or if he says no and his wife keeps fucking you, well then, she’s cheating on him for real and not “cheating” on him for fun.

Zooming out for a second: You knew this was a turn-on for your friend before you fucked his wife. You knew he was a cuckold, which means you knew he would be getting off on you fucking his wife, DACUCK, which means you knew he’d be out there somewhere beating off about you and your dick. Even if he didn’t want to hear from you directly afterwards, even if he was pumping the wife for the details, your friendship was sexualized pretty much from the moment he asked you to fuck his wife and you agreed.

So the problem isn’t the sexualization of this friendship or the awareness that this dude is out there beating off about you. The problem is having to listen to him beat off when you get on the phone—or having to see him become visibly aroused when you meet up in person—and there’s a pretty easy workaround for that. (I love a solvable problem!) Instead of giving him a call after you’ve fucked his wife, use the voice memo app on your phone to record a long, detailed, insult-strewn message after you’ve fucked his wife and send it him. You’ll still get to fuck his wife, he’ll still get to hear about it from you, and you won’t have to listen to him doing what you damn well knew he’d be doing after you fucked his wife, i.e. furiously beating off about you.

The sex, when you have it, is intense and satisfying… but routine and banal at the same time because there’s no spontaneity. The obvious answer is obvious: If having sex at the same time and in the same place is ruining the intense and satisfying sex you’re having, BANAL, maybe don’t always have sex at the same time or in the same place? And since you’re the initiator and that’s unlikely to change—turning a cheater into a faithful partner is easier than turning a non-initiator into an initiator—that means you’re in charge of the when and the where. You’ve already compromised on having sex twice a week, which is your low-end preference and double his preference (so you got the better end of that deal), and now all you gotta do is initiate sex on different days, at different times, and in different places. Easy-peasy.

Now for the non-obvious answer, BANAL: You need to listen to what your boyfriend is telling you. Monogamy is difficult for everyone, not just your boyfriend, but some people find it more difficult than others. And asking someone who finds monogamy extremely difficult to make a monogamous commitment… yeah, that’s not a great plan. This isn’t entirely on you; someone whose libido tanks when they’re in a monogamous relationship and/or someone who’s way more interested in sex when they’re free to sleep around shouldn’t be making monogamous commitments. Or not making them yet. Monogamy might not be right for your boyfriend at the moment, BANAL, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be right for him ever. Just like sex you have to schedule might not be right for you now, while in your mid-twenties, but that doesn’t mean scheduled/routine/maintenance sex won’t be right for you ever.