• Oral reports

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    Each week, Dan Savage is here to answer your burning sex questions.

    Q: I’m a 32-year-old straight guy. My wife and I have been married for four years and together for nine. We have a great marriage and all is well. 

    We have been quarantining at home since March. During this time, we have been exploring things sexually, which has been really fun. We have also been talking more about our kinks and fantasies. One thing my wife really wants to try is an MMF threesome. I’ve agreed and she’s been talking about how hot it will be to make this happen once quarantine is over. She is particularly turned on by the fact that this would be my first sexual experience with another guy. 

    The only issue is, in reality, it won’t be. The truth is that when I was in high school, a guy friend and I fooled around a few times. I have no regrets, but those experiences only served to reaffirm that I preferred women. I never did anything with another guy and I never felt the need to mention these early experiences to my wife. She just assumed I had never had a same-sex encounter. Now I feel like I’ve misled her or lied to her somehow. Should I tell her the truth or just let her believe our MMF threesome would be my first time with a guy?

    – Nervously Omitted Homosexual Occurrences, Mostly Oral

    If your wife reads my column, NOHOMO, then you’ve just told her the truth and the advice that follows is moot. So here’s hoping she doesn’t read my column: You don’t have to tell your wife about the handful/mouthful of times you messed around with another guy in high school. If you’re like most straight guys with one or two cocks in your past, NOHOMO, I’m guessing you didn’t tell the wife because you didn’t want her to feel insecure or spend all her free time corresponding with advice columnists about whether her husband is secretly gay.

    In fairness to the wife, NOHOMO, not every woman whose straight-identified male partner admits to a little same-sex messing around worries her boyfriend or husband is going to leave her for a dude or all the dudes. But this worry is common enough to be something of cliché. A straight guy doesn’t even have to admit to having sucked one dick one time for his wife or girlfriend to worry he’s secretly gay; I get at least one letter every day from a woman who’s worried her husband is gay because he likes to have his nipples played with or his butt touched or because he has feelings. So while it’s not ideal that straight-or-mostly-straight guys don’t feel they can be honest with their wives about their long ago and far away same-sex experimentation, NOHOMO, it’s understandable that many straight guys err on the side of keeping that shit to themselves.

    But your question isn’t, “Why didn’t I tell her then?” but rather, “Should I tell her now?” And I don’t think you have to. She wasn’t harmed by this omission – you didn’t deprive her of information she was entitled to – and disclosing now would only serve to deprive her of something, i.e. the excitement she feels about being there to witness what she thinks is your first same-sex encounter. 

    “Not every woman whose straight-identified male partner admits to a little same-sex messing around worries her boyfriend or husband is going to leave her for a dude or all the dudes.”

    Q: My wife questions my use of the word gay as being potentially offensive and I’d like to get your take. I’m male and my male friends like to flirt and joke about performing sex acts on each other. We’ve never actually carried through with it, but I consider myself on the “spectrum” and might be open to gay sex. 

    My male friends and I say we’re being or acting gay (though we’re all practicing heterosexuals) and this is where my wife takes issue. For example, I might say, “We’re so gay!” in our conversations, but the word is used in a positive way. My wife makes the point that the word has a history of being used negatively, so may be considered offensive, and should only be used casually by people who are more legit gay. Should I stop using the word gay this way?

    – Gay Poser

    Jesus, just suck off one of your male friends already – just get it over with – and then you have my permission to keep using “gay” as compliment, GP.

    Q: I’m a 35-year-old seemingly straight man, but in the past year – roughly corresponding with the longest sex drought in the history of my adulthood – I have had recurring wet dreams where I suck myself off. Probably a dozen or so of these dreams, all up, and I very much enjoy both sides of the transaction. What do you think it means? Am I witnessing the stirrings of some latent bisexuality or am I just desperate? Should I heed the call? 

    – Originally Unilateral Regarding Oral But Oneiromancy Reveals Opening Sexuality

    I usually don’t allow elaborate signoffs, OUROBOROS, but I’m making an exception for yours because it’s brilliant. (To save my other readers the trouble of googling: “oneiromancy” is the interpretation of dreams to predict the future and an “ouroboros” is an image of a snake swallowing its own tail, often used as an infinity symbol.)

    That said, I’m not sure there’s really any call to heed here – other than a call to start doing the kind of stretching that would allow you to suck your own cock if you were 1. to get limber enough and 2. your cock is long enough. But a desire to suck one’s own cock – or even an attempt, successful or not – doesn’t mean a man is latently bisexual or gay. I assume you’ve been masturbating for more than two decades, OUROBOROS, and just as there’s nothing gay about all those handjobs you’ve given yourself, there’s nothing gay about the blowjobs you can only dream about giving yourself.

    Q: I’m that rare gay man who doesn’t like sucking dick. It wasn’t hard for my VGL husband to find guys who wanted to blow him before quarantine, and for years I didn’t ask about it because I didn’t want to know the details. But I knew he had a video on his phone of some guys blowing him that he sometimes watched, and I recently asked to watch one and I was completely shocked. It wasn’t just a blowjob. He spat in the guy’s face, called him homophobic names, and was just generally brutal. The intensity and violence wasn’t something I’ve ever detected in my husband or been on the receiving end from my husband. When I pressed my husband he shrugged and said, “That’s how a lot of guys like it.” I’m not sure what to do.

    – Gay And Gloomy Guy Extremely Disturbed

    “Just as there’s nothing gay about all those handjobs you’ve given yourself, there’s nothing gay about the blowjobs you can only dream about giving yourself.”

    I read your letter three times and I still can’t tell whether you’re appalled or you’re jealous. Do you disapprove of your husband treating someone that way or are you disappointed that your husband has never treated you that way? If it’s the former, well, don’t watch any more videos of your husband throat fucking his subby cocksuckers. 

    If it’s the latter (and I suspect it is), GAGGED, then you’re going to need to figure out how to articulate that clearly – something you failed to do in your letter – so you can tell your husband you’d like it like that too. Not being used for oral like that, of course, since you don’t like performing oral sex. But maybe you’d like anal like that?

    Dear Readers: This is gonna feel a little weird stuck onto the end of this week’s column, I realize, but I wanted to say something about protests all over the country and the world. While I haven’t been able to personally attend a Black Lives Matters protest over the last two weeks – I have deeply shitty lungs and I’m concerned about contracting coronavirus – I fully support everyone who has taken to the streets to protest the violence of systemic racism and the specific violence inflicted on the black people by racist cops. And while I can’t be at the protests, my husband and I made a donation to bail funds across the country to help people who were arrested at them. (You can donate at actblue.com/donate/bailfunds.) Please keep marching, please wear your masks (they work!), and please – please – make sure you and everyone you know is registered to vote.

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