Eugene Weekly : Savage Love : 7.10.08

 

I am a heterosexual male in my 20s, and I need some help putting a label on my kink/fetish. I usually don’t care much for labels in any aspect of life, but I’m hoping that knowing what to call this may help me find others who share the same interest: I love it when a woman watches me masturbate. She doesn’t have to touch me at all, take off her own clothes, or play with herself. However, she has to enjoy watching me for me to enjoy performing. I have no interest in “flashing” or otherwise imposing myself on someone who doesn’t want to watch. Also, I don’t want to show just anyone; I just enjoy being watched by a woman.

I’ve seen some CFNM porn, but that often seems to be more about humiliation, which I’m not interested in at all.

Wanting A Named Kink

 

If you’re looking for a label, WANK, what’s wrong with “exhibitionist”? It’s a fine, serviceable term, and an honorable sexual pursuit — provided, of course, that you exhibit yourself exclusively to women who wish to take in your exhibition. A flasher may be the first thing that pops to mind when people hear the term “exhibitionist,” WANK, but while all flashers are exhibitionists, it doesn’t follow that all exhibitionists are flashers. Perhaps you could start a movement to reclaim “exhibitionism” from the creeps?

As for CFNM porn — that’s “clothed female, naked male” — most of it features strong subtexts (or domtexts) of humiliation, even seemingly vanilla-ish iterations, but that’s unavoidable. CFNM upends all the usual gender power dynamics: The man is naked and vulnerable and subject to the woman’s gaze; the woman is clothed and in control and assessing the man. Perhaps the role that dom/sub dynamics play in your turn-on is so subtle, WANK, that you honestly believe humiliation has nothing to do with it. But it’s in there.

 

I’m a gay man who never experimented with girls when I was younger. I’ve been in a relationship for a little over a year now, and it’s great. We have an “open-enough” relationship that allows for some exploration of our sexuality with other people and we talk openly about it. The only thing is, I don’t know how to tell him about this fetish I’ve developed for CFNM. I don’t want to have sex with a woman, but I really want to find one who wants to stay fully clothed while watching me masturbate. I also have a fantasy for a woman to watch me have sex with my BF or another man. Attempts to find a woman via various websites have so far been unfruitful. I want to blame the prudes in Minneapolis for this, but I’m starting to think women just aren’t into watching a man get naked and jack off.

How do I ask my boyfriend to get involved in this kink? And how do I find a woman who is into watching?

Horny And Clothed In Minneapolis

 

Make some lesbian friends, HACIM.

Lots of dykes watch gay male porn, a phenomenon I would unpack in this space if, um, I had the faintest idea what was up with that. (Ladies? What is up with that?) And on more than one occasion, lesbian pals have asked me and my boyfriend to put on a live sex show for ’em. They apparently wanted to see what gay sex looked like without the bad lighting, the waxed eyebrows, and the faked chemistry. Equal parts modesty and performance anxiety have sadly prevented my boyfriend and me from obliging our lesbian pals. But you, clearly, could do better by your lesbian buddies.

And how do you ask the boyfriend to go there with you? Just like any smart kinkster asks a partner to indulge, or consider indulging, his kink, HACIM: with a smile and a sense of humor. Kinks should always be presented as perks, as something that makes you a more interesting and fun sex partner, not as something that makes you a defective or problematic sex partner. And if your boyfriend isn’t willing to go there, HACIM, it doesn’t sound like you’ll have much trouble getting his permission to go there on your own.

 

My boyfriend and I met sleazy about six weeks ago when a guy I met on Craigslist took me over to my then-future boyfriend’s house for a three-way. During the three-way, my then-future boyfriend struggled with a condom and said that they “choked” him. Then he asked if he could stick it in me without a condom. He stated that he had had a vasectomy and then asked me if I had any STIs. I said that I didn’t and he said that he didn’t either. Long story short, we hit it off and thus began a relationship. After a month of blissful, unprotected sex, my boyfriend told me that he has herpes! He said that he got it a long time ago at his bachelor party. I want to dump the motherfucker, but he’s telling me that he hasn’t had an outbreak in three years and that if I really cared about him it wouldn’t make a difference. What do you think?

Didn’t Know I Was Dating Herpes Boy

 

What do I think? Honestly, DKIWDHB? I think you’re an idiot.

You met up with a strange guy for a nearly anonymous three-way that some other guy set up over Craigslist, and it turns out that this strange man you met — your now-boyfriend — has a rather common sexually transmitted infection. A thinking person who met someone under those circumstances would be shocked to discover that her now-boyfriend didn’t have herpes.

Even though you may have already had herpes when you met this guy (you could’ve been exposed long ago and just not shown any symptoms to date), you still have a legit complaint. But it’s not about the STI issue, DKIWDHB, it’s about the lying. A man who’s selfish enough to lie to a woman about his health — even a woman he’s just met and suspects he may never meet again—in order to get out of wearing a condom isn’t going to draw the line at that lie. He’ll lie to you about other stuff — like, you know, vasectomies that he may or may not have had. You’re worried about the herpes when you should probably be worried about the most common STI of all: pregnancy.

 

My girlfriend and I haven’t had anything resembling sex in months. But anytime I bring it up, she says she doesn’t like to discuss it and that she’d rather “surprise” me with it. That apparently feels more natural, and the mere discussion of sex is a dead turnoff.

What The Fuck?

 

Whatever the fuck is going on here, WTF, and whatever the fuck I tell you to do, I’ll get shitloads of mail — all from readers with no more information to work with than I have — explaining how this is all your fault. Because, you see, you’re the man and whenever a couple’s sex life goes off the rails, it is always the man’s fault. (That’s what makes gay relationships so egalitarian.) But for what it’s worth — and it ain’t worth much—here’s my advice: “Surprise” her by moving out.

 

 

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