Q: I am a 22-year-old female with a wonderful, caring, 21-year-old boyfriend. Though I have slept with more people, none of my long-term relationships has lasted as long as his single previous relationship (we have been dating for nine months). I felt very grounded and secure in our relationship, and ready to try new things with him — until yesterday.
We were discussing a new fantasy of his: bondage. I mentioned that this would be the first time I had deviated from "normal" hetero oral or vaginal penetration. He said he was "not entirely" in the same boat, and told me he had had anal sex with his ex-girlfriend. I was shocked. I can't really put my finger on why I'm upset. It can't be the actual act, because I was considering trying it with him. The best I can figure out is that I feel betrayed. We had the "experience level" conversation when we started dating, and it seems to me that would have been a good time to bring this up.
Am I right to feel misled? The bondage idea, which sounded like fun before, now just leaves a bad taste in my mouth. My boyfriend says he doesn't understand what has changed. —Bondage Interrupted
A: Ask yourself this, BI: If your boyfriend had said "Oh, yeah, I did anal with the ex — I fucked her ass tons of times!" during that early "experience level" conversation, wouldn't it have made him seem a little scary? A tad sexually intimidating? And wouldn't knowing that he had already done anal with his ex make you feel like you had to do it too — and do it soon — to keep his interest? And wouldn't that have made you feel pressured to do anal before you were ready?
Instead of rubbing his anal experiences in your face, as it were, he let you get to know him first. He let you see that he was wonderful and caring, safe and patient, and then gave you the, er, whole story. Was he deceitful? I suppose so, but early "experience level" conversations aren't depositions — Christ, if they were we would all be perjurers. Sometimes trust has to be built and trustworthiness demonstrated before someone feels secure enough to reveal everything.
Now, stop being a dick about this and tie that boy up already!
Q: I am a straight 26-year-old male with a sexy, adventurous girlfriend. She is my sixth sexual partner and I am her first. From innocent Christian-schoolgirl beginnings, she has followed me into bondage, water sports and strip clubs — she even indulges my mild sadism! At first she was firmly against the idea of "sharing" me. Then she told me she had changed her mind. She's always been attracted to women, and she mentioned some women we may want to ask to have a three-way with us. I was overjoyed — what straight man wouldn't be?
During this same discussion she mentioned that she wasn't sure it would be a good idea for her to commit to never having sex with another man — after all, she's only been with me. I told her that it sounded OK, but since I'm not really into MMF threesomes, she would be on her own. But when I asked if I could fuck other women without her being there, she said no! If she can fuck men without my presence, why can't I fuck women without hers? Isn't this a complete double standard? —Fair Is Fair
A: She wants to have FFM three-ways because she's attracted to women, FIF, but there's something in it for you too. Not only do you get to participate, but your participation also gives you veto power over the women your girlfriend messes around with. Since those FFM three-ways can't happen without you, they can't happen with women you find threatening or don't approve of. But if you sleep with other women without her around, she doesn't get a veto.
As for other men, FIF, the reason she "gets" to fuck other guys without you there — big, brave, kinky, experienced, sadistic you — is because you have some sort of stupid hang-up about MMF three-ways. There's no double standard: She's perfectly willing to watch you fuck around with another woman. You, on the other hand, are not willing to watch her mess around with another guy. (You're not required to touch the other guy in an MMF threesome.) If you can't go there — if you're terrified of being in the same room with another naked man — then she's not choosing to be alone with that other guy, you're imposing that choice on her.
Q: It makes my hot, atheist, well-hung, tattooed, slim white-boy blood boil when I read about attacks on our sexual freedoms. The question I have for you is: What can I do? You keep telling us to fight back. OK, but how? Help me channel my outrage! If it helps, I'll send you a photo of me naked and begging on my knees. —Enraged Atheist Thinks Master's Evil
A: Send me that photo, EATME, and I'll pull together a whole bonus column — a Web extra — on what you can do to fight the American Taliban and stop its war on sexual freedom. Which brings us to this week's. ...
Straight rights update: After tossing nearly half of last week's column away on a straight rights update, it was my intention to give it a rest. In fact, every time I write one of these I think, "This is the last one. Banning abortion, evicting unmarried straight couples and their children, moving to ban birth control — things can't get any worse, can they?"
Oh, but they can: Not satisfied with meddling in the lives of the relatively small percentage of women who are pregnant, the American Taliban is moving to regulate the lives of all American women.
"New federal guidelines ask all females capable of conceiving a baby to treat themselves — and to be treated by the health care system — as pre-pregnant, regardless of whether they plan to get pregnant anytime soon," reports the Washington Post. "[T]his means all women between first menstrual period and menopause should take folic acid supplements, refrain from smoking, maintain a healthy weight and keep chronic conditions such as asthma and diabetes under control ... [I]t's important that women follow this advice throughout their reproductive lives, because about half of pregnancies are unplanned and so much damage can be done to a fetus between conception and the time the pregnancy is confirmed."
Color me paranoid, but ordering American women to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant" because they may harm a fetus they don't know they're carrying opens the door to prosecuting women who harm their fetuses by failing to regard themselves as "pre-pregnant." How long until "women should ... refrain from smoking [and] maintain a healthy body weight" becomes "women must. ..." Does that sound paranoid? Well, so did a war on contraception once.
Oddly enough, Bush's Centers for Disease Control and Prevention doesn't urge straight men to regard themselves as existing in a perpetual state of "pre-fatherhood." Smoking, obesity, asthma and diabetes could seriously hamper a man's ability to do the heavy lifting that comes with fatherhood. But Bush's CDC doesn't seem that interested in regulating the behavior of all those fat, smoking pre-fathers out there.
Gee. Isn't. That. Weird.
There is a bright side in the CDC's announcement: If we're going to regard all females as pre-pregnant, then we can, as my friend Gomez points out, regard all virgins as merely pre-fucked.
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