Q: I’m a woman who married young (21), and I’ve been with my husband for seven years. Within the last year, I’ve realized that my falling libido probably comes from the fact that I am not turned on by our boring vanilla sex routine. I had some great casual sex before we met, but it turns out I’m into BDSM, which I found out when I recently had a short affair. I’ve kept the secret and guilt to myself, but I have told my husband I’m into BDSM. He wants to make me happy, but I can tell he isn’t turned on doing these things. I’ve tried to ask him if we can open up our relationship so that I can live out my fantasies. I would like to go to a BDSM club, and he isn’t interested at all. He was very upset and said he’s afraid of losing me if we go. He also felt like I was giving him an ultimatum. But I told him he was allowed to say no, and that I wouldn’t leave if he did.
Second, basic sexual compatibility (BSC) is crucial to the success of sexually exclusive relationships, and it’s a bad idea to scramble your DNA together with someone else’s before BSC has been established.
The big issue here is that you got bored. Even if you were 100 percent vanilla, that shit would get tedious after a few years. Or minutes. After risking your marriage to treat your boredom (the affair), you asked your husband to shake things up by incorporating BDSM into your sex life, by going to BDSM clubs, and by at least considering the possibility of opening up your marriage. (Ethically this time.) And while he’s made a small effort where BDSM is concerned, your husband ruled out BDSM clubs and openness. But since he’s only going through the BDSM motions, what he is doing isn’t working for you. And it’s probably not working for him.
“But seen through a lens of parity, what WTHT wants is not ‘foreplay’ or ‘complicated stuff,’” said Martin. “It’s sex, and the sooner her husband lets go of this intercourse = sex fetish of his, and acknowledges that her pleasure matters as much as his does, the sooner he’ll be a real partner to his wife.” v
