Six Years Ago, I Indulged My Husband’s Biggest Fantasy. Now It’s Eating Me Alive. – Slate Magazine

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How to Do It is Slate’s sex advice column. Have a question? Send it to Stoya and Rich here. It’s anonymous!

Dear How to Do It,

I have something I’ve been trying to wrap my head around for several years now. I (straight woman, 38) have been with my husband (straight man, 36) for eight years. Shortly before we got married, he admitted he thought wearing my panties would be sexy after a few drinks one night. I’ve always told him I’m open to anything sexually as long as it only involves the two of us, so I was open to him wearing my panties. I did find it taboo and sexy. It seemed mild and a fun way to spice things up. It was fun … and then it started taking over my life.

Things very quickly escalated to him wearing lingerie, wigs, makeup, or painting his toenails during sex. Most of those (makeup, wigs, painting nails) were more occasional foreplay, but the lingerie is something he now wears almost every single time we are intimate. Very rarely—maybe a couple times a year—we have sex without him wearing lingerie. (Those times are middle of the night, half asleep sex where it is not planned and he wakes up briefly to fool around.) His dirty talk has also escalated to him saying things I’d never heard before, which led me (after questioning him and his repeated denial) to discover he was watching trans porn pretty frequently, which I tried really hard not to take personally. At times, I’ve felt like he must not be attracted to me with how into this cross-dressing fetish he is. He has expressed (only during sex) wanting to bring another man into the bedroom, very vividly describing what he wanted to do to him, and has explored with anal play using toys, which he really enjoys.

Generally I’m OK with most of this, although it’s taken quite a bit of adjusting on my end and several discussions to clear what is sexual fantasy for him, or whether he wants any of these things in real life. He swears he only says these things about other men in the moment, but he says them so often that I’m just not sure. It’s truthfully caused me to feel a bit insecure and insufficient. I’ve also expressed repeatedly that while I’m game for him wearing lingerie like he prefers, sometimes I’d really like to have sex without him in lingerie. He says he’s open to it, but time has shown me he just does not prefer it at all. If we have sex, he picks out lingerie for us both. He now has an extensive lingerie collection, which I have bought him a lot of. It really seems the fantasies have taken over. This has been happening for about six years.

What do I do to get this point across or tame this fetish of his? I don’t feel it’s fair to only feed into his fetishes every time we’re having sex. The truth is I love my husband and he’s extremely masculine outside of our sex life, but I’m attracted to men, and I want to have sex with that masculine man I know. I’m not attracted to men in lingerie. It’s just something I’ve learned to tolerate, at best. I’ve said countless times I like having sex without the lingerie sometimes and he seems receptive but it just never happens. Overall, our sex life is great and we both enjoy our time. I just feel like I’ve been sucked into his fantasies and I don’t know if this is sustainable for me for the rest of my life. Please help me decipher what all of this means and what I can do to find balance in our sex life.

—The Pruder Partner

Dear Pruder Partner,

When I read the following line, a furious record scratch sounded in my head: “Overall, our sex life is great and we both enjoy our time.” Huh???  Before that, “great” is about the last word I figured you’d use to describe your sex life. Are you sure about that? If so, I think you should consider that your sex life may be great because of your husband’s fetish and your willingness to indulge him. Being unable to express oneself fully tends to show up in the quality of the sex. That said, even if it is great, I understand that the current situation is not ideal and that you would prefer a bit more variety in terms of your husband’s presentation. That’s completely fair, though potentially impossible.

Think practically here. If there is enough there to make sex great, irrespective of the lingerie, what’s happening with your sex life now might be worth preserving in full. That said, I think it would be reasonable to point out to your husband that the lingerie and other accoutrements are his thing and that you’d really like to try sex without them. Your desires are valid too, and, as you’ve done so much to indulge his, it seems he could stand to do the same for you. Do not state this vaguely with no particular target; tell him you’d like the next time you have sex to be lingerie-free. An extremely gentle reminder immediately before that session, whenever it is, could also be useful. . If he does not honor your desire, you can point out then and there that you are not getting what you just asked for. What does he want to do about that? Does he expect you to put his desires before yours, every single time?

Doing this would quietly test him in multiple ways. You’d see if he’d be able to have sex without the lingerie and, if so, you’d be able to evaluate the quality of the sex. Maybe you’d both disprove my hypothesis, and have great sex even without his fetish in play. Regardless, I think you’ll find that the lingerie isn’t really going anywhere. At best, you’ll be able to mix in some non-lingerie sex between the lingerie sessions, but your husband is stating very clearly what he’s into and what’s going to keep him engaged in sex. It’s up to you to decide whether you want that.

His fantasies about sexually servicing other men might just be fantasies. Even if there is a desire to make this real, it may be too challenging, as it would require coordination and if he’s only feeling this stuff during his peak horniness, he might not have the motivation to actually make it happen. Certainly, plenty of people carry around desires that they never actually act on (like those in monogamous relationships who don’t cheat despite their attraction to other people). At least this stuff isn’t being kept secret. Your husband is sharing with you and there’s something beautiful in his honesty. Part of the fun of having sex with masculine men is unwrapping the tough exterior to get to their gooey middle. Almost all of them have one. Yours may be softer than you would prefer, though. At minimum, you should consider what you will do if lingerie is always a part of your sex life with him. Can you live with that for the rest of your life? If not, you may have some tough decisions ahead of you.

—Rich

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