App Anxiety – Dan Savage

Warning. The language of this column is direct and explicit.

I’m a bisexual cis over 40 who doesn’t have much experience with men, happily married to a wonderful woman what are of my bisexuality. While we are currently monogamous, we are considering opening the pair. If that happens, I would love to have sex with men every now and then, but the dynamics of gay pickup apps make me anxious.
1. I will be often discarded why am i bi or married? I guess biphobia is more problematic for someone looking for a relationship rather than sex, but I don’t know.
2. If I meet someone and we end up fucking, is it embarrassing to bring up the condom? I know: I shouldn’t be afraid to ask for a condom, and if someone can’t comply with the request I shouldn’t fuck. I am not afraid and I would not fuck us. But wouldn’t most men be a little surprised, especially now that there is PrEP?
3. In this regard, is it appropriate to ask the doctor about PrEP if I just want to have a fuck every now and then (maybe a few times a year) with people I have screened and whose seronegativity or undetectable I trust? I want to play it safe, but I don’t want to put unnecessary drugs in my body.
4. Does this “shortage of assets” I read about really exist? Are there many men exclusively active or passive?
5. Is there anything else I should know before jumping into apps?

– Wondering About Navigating New Arenas Before Indulging

1. There are biphobic gays, WANNABI, but I must say that in the straight community there are more. The biphobia of straight people is less annoyingly hypocritical, there is no doubt about this, but it does more damage; studies show that a hetero biphobic spouse is the main risk factor for the psychological balance of bisexuals. So I’m glad to hear that your wife accepts your bisexuality, WANNABI, and I apologize in advance for the biphobia you will suffer from some idiotic gay men. But if you’re just looking for casual sex, WANNABI, you don’t have to declare yourself bisexual on apps. Nor should you assume that the men you meet on the “gay” apps are all gay; some are bisexual like you. And if it is mainly biphobic gays that attract attention, WANNABI, there are also many gays who like “straight” married people a lot. If you don’t want to keep your wife hidden or even find yourself a friend who asks you to leave her, looking for men who are really attracted to having a wife waiting for you at home is not a bad strategy.

2. Even at the height of the AIDS epidemic – when HIV was almost inevitably fatal – condoms were used 100 percent of the time by 100 percent of gay and bisexual men. Now that there are PrEP (a daily pill that prevents HIV infection) and treatments that make it impossible for HIV-positive men to spread the virus (if the viral load is not detectable, the virus is not transmitted), men gays and bisexuals who use condoms are decreasing. If you want to use condoms because you are not on PrEP and / or you want to avoid and avoid all sexually transmitted infections from which PrEP does not protect you – i.e. all other existing sexual infections – demand the use of condoms and discard anyone. raise objections.

3. If one wants the freedom to have sex with men spontaneously and / or anonymously, taking PrEP daily is a good idea. But PrEP can also be used without taking it every day, if you have sex with men once or twice a year and the meetings are scheduled a few days in advance. Intermittent or “on demand” use of PrEP is extremely effective: you take two pills 24 hours before having sex, and then one a day for two days.

4. Not all gays and bisexuals like to have anal sex or do it with casual partners, WANNABI, and although many of the men I met – met with force and from behind – were formally versatile, it is true that there seems to be more passive than active around. Not that “passive” and “active” are static identities; one who plays the passive with you may prefer to be active with another, one who as a young person likes to be a passive may later prefer the active role and vice versa, and so on.

5. Not everyone uses recent photos, WANNABI, and not everyone is a decent person. Some people lie to slip into their underwear or ass or sit on their cock or face. Trust what your gut tells you, WANNABI, and be choosy when choosing who to turn it over.

I am a homosexual between 40 and 50 years old and I live in a rainy city. I met and fell in love with a recently divorced man with teenage children. We moved quickly, moving to the suburbs, setting up a home and even welcoming one of the children to live with us. It is not like me to run like this, but the spring has sprung between us. I thought he knew what it takes to make a stable relationship work, and his post-divorce financial situation was such that living together would help him a lot. I jump forward five years, to me that one day I come home and I hear him announce that he is moving to a less rainy city with a new boyfriend. The new boyfriend was a mutual friend that I had suspicions about, but about whom I had repeatedly heard that I imagined everything. Obviously the friend did great scenes showing himself “hurt” because I seemed hostile to him, for something of which he declared himself innocent but of which he was actually very guilty. In conclusion, gaslighting textbook for both.

Since then what I want in a relationship has changed. I miss and desire the emotional connection__, the daily routine, sleeping in the same bed, the physical affection unexpected__. With sex it’s another story. As soon as I have sex with someone, maybe twice if it’s really nice, I don’t want to see him. I still want to do it and I do, but not with those I want a relationship with. My questions.
1. How do I get there? We all know LOTS of couples who no longer have sex with each other but did it in the beginning. Nobody wants not to do it right away.
2. Close friends I have talked to think he has some problems or is crazy. I think I’m fine. I can’t explain why I want this, but I know it’s right for me. I’m crazy? I have problems?

Down To Fuck Or Marry But Not Both

1. You ask. This doesn’t guarantee you will get it, of course, but it increases your chances by a lot. And if it is true that in most love relationships without sex at the beginning there was sex, DTFOMBNB, this is not true for everyone. So if you want the “love without sex never” option, well, start by saying that. Throw it there. There are asexual gays who want a partner to share intimacy with during the day and sleep at night but they don’t want to have sex, either at first or ever. There are also gay cuckolds, DTFOMBNB, and although many want to have sex with their “cheating” partner, some want to be denied it by a partner who constantly fucks others.

2. I don’t think you have any problems or are crazy, DTFOMBNB, but something has certainly changed. What you want now, after a traumatic separation, is not what you wanted before. And that’s not necessarily bad… I think… as long as you can find what you want or you don’t go crazy because you can’t. Because there is no doubt that finding a mate will be more difficult for you; asexual gays and cuckolds are there and thank goodness, of course, but they represent a small minority of a small minority of his. So I think you’d better talk to a shrink about it. At the very least, you must recognize that your desires have changed and may change again. Do and do what you feel right to do and do now, but don’t bind yourself to anything – don’t sign leases, don’t make a romantic commitment to anyone, with or without sex, don’t tie yourself to any self-fulfilling prophecy – as long as you still feel dazed or recovering from a traumatic separation.

(Translation by Matteo Colombo)