Girl on the Net

Today’s guest blog pressed a lot of my buttons – and not the ones that are normally pressed when someone tells me a horny thing. As a mostly-monogamous, keen-to-be-more-open person, I have struggled a lot with my internal double-standard. My ideal relationship consists of one guy I love very much, who gets off on letting me fuck other men. Fucking other men is, it seems, something I truly want to do. Hearing about him fuck other women? Not so much.

Today’s guest blogger is Sir, who tweets with his partner Subbie @SirandSubbie on Twitter. He wants to talk to you about Subbie fucking other men, and I’m grateful not just because he’s sharing some pretty raw, emotional stuff, but because he’s managed to sum up quite a lot of my feelings (both rational and irrational) about this very thing…

The awful double standard I perpetuate

OR: Why I Need To Stop Worrying And Love My Partner Fucking Other Men

My wife has just had sex with another man.

It’s late on a Thursday night, I’m drunk and I’m looking at her WhatsApp status. I’m watching it flick between Online and Offline. I know she has just had sex with another man because she had my full consent. Oh, I should probably mention the crying. Yeah, there is a lot of crying and snot. I want to try and give a bit of insight into why, despite my consent, I was crying profusely, so maybe a bit of background is necessary.

In my teens, for some reason I was fairly popular with the opposite sex, yet I seemed to rub my fellow class-mates (at an all boys school) the wrong way and as a result was very much an inbetweener. I never understood that at the time – I couldn’t figure out why some assholes were popular and I wasn’t. Discussing it later in life with therapists, it’s possible my comfort at being a boy who was open about his emotions and feelings was confusing for others in a school full of testosterone, especially during the height of “lad culture”, a movement to which I didn’t personally subscribe. I ended up having many horrible encounters at school and it led to me having a general distrust of men, something that didn’t really manifest itself fully until my late twenties and then worsen in my thirties. Even now, a group of men will make me incredibly uncomfortable if I’m walking down the street or if they are being a bit rowdy in a bar.

Skipping ahead some years, I ended up in a very stale marriage where sexual dry spells could rival Tatooine’s harshest seasons. I have always had an incredibly high sex drive but I just gave up trying and sadly the marriage ended after only a few years. I lay no blame at my ex-partner’s feet. We weren’t compatible on many levels but sex was a regular topic during arguments. I swore to myself that should I ever meet someone I really liked, I couldn’t go through that again. As much for their sake as mine.

I love sex in all shapes and forms. I had kinks and fantasies I had never tried and at 32 when I divorced, I wasn’t going to just settle for vanilla, infrequent sex again. I would need to find a likeminded person. After some sporadic encounters via online dating, I met my partner, known on Twitter as “Subbie.” We clicked instantly and needless to say, I found someone who had the same desires as me. In fact, we were meant to be just casual fuck buddies but that was thrown out of the window fairly quickly.

The topic of open relationships and playing with others had come up from time to time during our many conversations about sex. Subbie had a fair bit of experience with threesomes and I had zip. I loved hearing all the sordid details of her encounters and had always seen it as something that happened to far prettier, more interesting people than I. Eventually, I confessed to Subbie that I quite fancied one of her friends and liked the idea of all three of us playing together. That encounter is for another time, but a key point to note here is that on a separate occasion, I was afforded the opportunity to fuck said friend in our bed when Subbie was away for the night. Subbie encouraged this even. Telling me how wet it made her to know I was deep inside another woman in our bed. Yep, that’s right. I am encouraged by my wife to fuck other women. This to date has happened with two women.

How many times had the woman I love and trust been able to experience the touch of another man by this point? Anyone want to take “None, because you’re a double-standard-enforcing, typical male arsehole” for $200? Yeah. I am or at least was, and nothing has caused so much conflict in me since Tennant left Doctor Who.

I had to change that.

Subbie was out one night with some friends and met someone she fancied. He was gorgeous, built like a fucking Spartan and a charming bastard. Her desires to jump him were clear. It took me a little time, maybe a few weeks, but I wanted to push my boundaries. Why the fuck was I so conflicted about this? I class myself as a feminist, a forward-thinking person and after being allowed to fuck two other women, why am I faltering so much at the idea of someone who I love dearly enjoying the same? Subbie and the Spartan eventually went on a date. We had discussed boundaries before and I was OK with making out and a little fooling around. The idea was clearly a turn on as I wanked off furiously thinking about it whilst Subbie was on the date.

Yet that voice at the back of my head was working overtime and had somehow got it’s hands on a fucking megaphone. It was winning. I had concerns and doubts but I wanted to see this through. I knew it would be OK. It had to be OK. It will be OK. Ah, Jesus tap dancing Christ, what if he fucks her better than I do? What if he makes her cum in ways I had never fathomed? Add about another thousand crippling questions here and you will be roughly in my headspace.

So, back to the night where I am drunk and on the floor in a big snotty, weepy mess. Subbie was staying at Spartan’s house for the night. I busied myself around the house, got a few beers in and decided to play some games. Genuinely, I was fine but something happened around 11pm. I lost it. I just sat and watched Subbie’s status change on Whatapp. Have they fucked? Is she telling someone how amazing it was? Why don’t you put the phone down and do something else, mate? I caved. I tried to stop myself but I couldn’t. I was typing and the self-loathing was rising. My message to subbie: “I’m not coping.”

From there, it spirals. Subbie is asking if I want her to come home. I’m screaming YES in my head but telling her to stay out. I need to see this through. I know everything will be alright but years of conditioning, years of being told how men and women should act is informing everything in my head and it’s splitting me in half. I even asked her to block me on WhatsApp for the night.

I’m going to save you a ton of reading and just say the rest of the conversation is gruesome. We looked back over the night in question recently and fucking hell, it is not a good read. I will save you the trouble but picture the famous car wreck scene in The Blue Brothers and you have a rough idea of how well it went.

I’m thankful that Subbie and I have such a solid foundation for our relationship that we could sit and talk about this when she came home the next day. I couldn’t apologise more. I felt awful for it and I caused the person I love dearly so much worry. As it had been a weeknight, both of us had to go to work for a full day before we could see each other to talk. I question if we did’t have this foundation then we might not be together anymore. If you take anything from this article, please let it be that communication is the be all and the end all of relationships.

If you haven’t already tutted at me or rolled your eyes at me during this article, let me add a cherry to my rather large serving of double-standard gateaux. Subbie is a bi woman and I have absolutely zero issue with her going off and meeting women or attending all-women orgies. No concerns, no trust issues, no concerns over a woman pleasuring her better than I. How fucked up is that? The answer is very and it kills me. I consider myself a full LGBT ally and feel that biphobia is often overlooked. Yet, here I am practically dismissing any woman who has a sexual encounter with my wife as just a bit of fun. If I can do that for women, I should, could and will do that for any sexual encounter she has with men.