Savage Love: March 28, 2024

Chumps and cummer's remorse

By Dan Savage - Mar. 28, 2024
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I'm involved with a guy who’s married and, yes, I'm a cliché and I know it. I don't want him to leave his wife. I don't even want to be involved with him physically, and we aren't doing anything physical. We've both been good about maintaining that boundary. But we are very involved emotionally. 

We like to tell ourselves that we're not cheating, but it's definitely an emotional affair. I honestly do not want to have sex with him. I look at pictures of him and his wife and kids to remind myself that he has a family, and I don't want to break up his family. Not that I could just by having sex with him, but you know what I mean. I don't want to be “the other woman.” 

My question: Am I endangering his family just by talking to him so much, about absolutely everything (including sexual fantasies we will never act on), and treating each other as soulmates? Perhaps I'm just naïve, but I’ve convinced myself that so long as we abstain from anything physical, we’re OK. 

— Can’t Have Unavailable Male Partner 

If you don’t wanna get run over, don’t play in traffic. If you don’t wanna fuck this married man, CHUMP, stop flirting with him

I’m a straight cis male. When I’m having sex with my current or past monogamous partners, it will feel really good for a while, but then I’ll plateau. In order to cum, I need to call up mental images of me fucking a specific past casual sex partner. (In no way is this past partner someone I’d rather be with — it just works and works reliably.) I've tried the obvious — being in the moment and connecting with my partner — and on a few occasions I’ve been able to cum without relying on my go-to, but those times are rare. 

Side note: I do watch porn, not excessively or compulsively, and I am able to cum doing so. And sometimes I masturbate about other past experiences that don’t involve this former partner and I am able to cum without calling up their mental image. I know there’s nothing wrong with this, but it does feel like a problematic fixation because it’s so specific.

My shame about this issue has gotten better over the years, but it still haunts me. I've tried sharing this with a monogamous partner in the past when they could sense I was somewhere else, and this was DEFINITELY a bad idea. But the alternative is being stuck in this secret headspace. Please help me out! 

— Can’t Understand My Situation 

Is this a problem, CUMS, or is it a superpower? Since you need to access these mental images in order to climax, that means you’re able to last exactly as long as your current partner would like you to last. You never cum too soon, CUMS, and you never take too long. 

Maybe instead of feeling bad about this “problem” and trying to fix it on your own you should 1. Accept that this is how your dick works and 2. Recognize how beneficial it is for current partners. 

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