Warning. The language of this column is direct and explicit.
I am a woman married to a man__. We happened to have fun with others, but not lately because we have a young child. We are both bisexual and over 40. We were evaluating the monkeypox vaccine, but it didn’t seem urgent to me because we don’t have sex with anyone at the moment. I come to the question: how should I react to the discovery that my husband has been vaccinated without telling me? I saw a red bump on his arm, he replied that it was nothing. So I told him it sounded like the reaction to the monkeypox vaccine, and he admitted he did it without telling me. I was in favor of him getting vaccinated, and that he sneaked in makes me panic. I think he is cheating on me. It’s two in the morning here and I’ve just ordered two home HIV / AIDS tests, and on Monday I’ll go to the gynecologist for a full screening for STDs. What should I do? I’m torn.
– Seriously Panicking Over Unapproved Shot And Lies
By the time you read this answer, SPOUSAL, the hiv / aids test kits will have arrived and you will have the results. You will also have seen the gynecologist, and probably withdrawn the test report for sexually transmitted infections (Ist). Assuming that there are no nasty surprises – that you are both negative about the same things you were in your last exams – what follows?
Far be it from me to want to provoke another sleepless night, SPOUSAL, but your exams may all be negative even if your husband cheats on you. In the absence of other evidence – in the absence of concrete evidence that he is cheating on you – I think your husband deserves the benefit of the doubt.
That monkeypox vaccine is the only fact that can be counted as proof, SPOUSAL, and there is a very long step between “My husband vaccinated himself against monkeypox without telling me” and “My husband cheats on me with other men. during a health crisis that mainly affects gay and bisexual men; furthermore, with those men she does not use a condom; furthermore, it consciously exposes me to the risk of contracting monkeypox and HIV ”. If in the past your husband has shown himself to be reckless with his sexual health and yours – if for example while playing with other people he has tried without your consent not to use precautions, and your paranoia stems from that and other similar incidents – I don’t understand what you are still doing married to him.
Widening the frame a little …
I can think of some very good reasons why a married bisexual might decide to get vaccinated against monkeypox even if his partner wants you to wait. First, it is not a readily available vaccine. If the doses have arrived in your area and / or his doctor has suggested it to him, he has done well to get the vaccine even if he is not sleeping with anyone else at the moment. And why would his partner – or you – want to keep him waiting? If you didn’t want him to get vaccinated in order to have some kind of insurance policy, if you were ready to make any betrayal unnecessarily and avoidably risky to avoid it, as a choice it seems rather irresponsible.
Sometimes, SPOUSAL, what may seem like an excuse is the sincere answer. My guess is that your husband got the vaccine because he hopes you can both start playing with each other again soon and he wants to be ready. Men have to wait one month between the first and second doses, and another two weeks after the last one to be fully immunized (or as immunized as possible). If your husband is looking forward to reopening the couple – by mutual agreement – in the short term, chances are he wanted to be ready for when you decided, together, to start playing with others again. And he didn’t tell you he was going to get the vaccine because, even though he wanted to be ready at the right time, he knew you weren’t ready and he didn’t want to rush or pressure you.
My analysis of the situation assumes that your husband is not a lying, cheating, disrespectful and reckless asshole, and that he deserves the benefit of the doubt. You know him better than I do, SPOUSAL, and it is perfectly possible that he has already proven himself a liar, a traitor, a disrespectful asshole and a foolish fool over and over again.
But if so – if he really is all these horrible, dishonorable and disqualifying things, and therefore doesn’t deserve the benefit of the doubt – I come back to ask you (over and over): what are you still doing married to him?
I need some advice on how to restart the “sex with other people” sector of my life because an operation for cancer has deprived me of erections, and it is not fixable. I can have intense orgasms if I masturbate or receive oral sex on the limp penis. I am 73 years old and have a passion for bdsm since I was a teenager, so I am aware that pleasure can be obtained in many ways besides penetrative sex. I also realize that for the vast majority of people, penetration is central. They often hit on me, so attraction is not a problem. How would you advise me to present my problem when someone shows interest in me? As for online dating, I would like to be direct and write it in the profile, but I am a public figure and I cannot post a photo of myself on a dating app revealing all of this. Do you have any suggestions on how to search for online dating without putting the photo? I am attracted to females, cis and trans. I have never been with a transgender woman, but after surviving cancer I am more open to any possibility than before (seeing the end of life up close eliminates a lot of blockages). Males don’t attract me at all. What is the word that best describes my sexual tastes?
– Giving But Not Hard
You are straight: broadly, spaciously, wonderfully straight.
As for dating apps …
Don’t hesitate to post your photo. Most people were dating online even before the pandemic started, and the few remaining refractory people – thanks to a nudge from health authorities – started looking for knowledge and sex on apps in March 2020. If it’s true that a character public can happen to be recognized on an app, no one whose opinion counts will blink (unless the profile lists your specific sexual interests), and only a dickhead (whose opinion will be ignored) would try to disgrace a public figure because he has a simple profile on a dating app.
As for the penetration …
Postpone the discussion of your dick and how it works now – because it still works (intense orgasms at your age!) – to the first face-to-face meeting. And the alternatives / variants of penis-to-vagina intercourse seem obvious to me. To please your partner (s) you can use your tongue, fingers, hands, sex toys and vibrators, and they can do (or help you do) what makes you enjoy. And when you find a person who wants or needs a good pounding – when you are with a woman who can only enjoy penetration (they are a minority, but they exist) or with a woman who enjoys combining penetration with a stimulation of another type (e.g. a vibrator, skillfully and simultaneously operated) – uses a strap-on, i.e. a dildo with a wearable harness. With the growing popularity enjoyed by male chastity tools and orgasm denial practices as submission games, it’s not uncommon to see cis men – gay, bi and straight – using strap-ons to fuck their partners. (or rather, you see a lot of them if you follow the same perverts and porn actors on Twitter that I follow). There is no reason why you shouldn’t use a strap-on during traditional straight sex, just as lesbians have always used strap-ons in traditional lesbian sex.
As for what is central to sex …
Sex is not about penetration, whether it is a penis into a vagina, throat, butt or nose. Sex does not require the presence of a penis in general, be it biological or silicone, soft or hard. Sex – the good one – is based on intimacy, understanding and pleasure, and nothing facilitates good sex like communication skills. I’ve been saying for a long time that gay people are better lovers than straight ones (ok, ok: #not all gay people, but the average gay person is better in bed than the average straight person). And that’s not because we have anything magical, but because we can’t automatically resort to vaginal penetration, which means we have to talk about what we want before we have sex, and discussing fundamentals like oral, anal and masturbation makes it easier to talk. of kinks, fetishes and fantasies (as well as limits and rules). In short, the sincere exchange you have to engage in with potential new sexual partners – what you can do for and with them, what you cannot do for and with them – will not only result in you ending up in bed with the right women (women for which your inability to get an erection won’t be a problem), but also getting you to have much better sex. Even better than those who get hard on.
***
I bought some drawings from a woman who lives in Norway. He sent me a picture of her stuffing the drawings into a mailing tube to send them to me. Seeing the photo, I felt an immediate attraction. It happened on October 6, and we have been exchanging messages ever since. I offered to visit her, but she doesn’t want her to take a trip on purpose. She suggested that I wait until I visit my relatives (I have relatives there). Here, meanwhile, I use a dating app, but meeting other people interests me little or nothing. I think only of her. I usually go to Norway to visit relatives every few years. If I go there to see her I would prefer not to tell the cousins, because when I go to visit them, the family tends to monopolize my time. What do you suggest me?
– Obliging Norwegian Seems Keenly Enticing
You don’t have to tell your cousins that you are going to Norway, ONSKE, just as you don’t need her permission to enter the country. Buy the ticket and tell her you are going to Norway. But I advise you to buy a refundable ticket: you know for sure that you are attracted to her, ONSKE, but you cannot say with as much confidence that she is attracted to you. It may well be, ONSKE, that she was simply being courteous to a client from another continent – perhaps in hopes of selling him more designs – and that you misunderstood his signals (I mean: if he really likes you, why suggest you wait years, until your next family visit, to meet you in person?). And even if she likes to meet you, ONSKE, there’s always a chance that you won’t snap. In short, buy the flight, keep expectations low and prepare a plan b, for example other people you would like to see (a surprise to the cousins?) Or other countries you would like to visit (they tell me that Austria is a delight this season).
(Translation by Matteo Colombo)