Q: I am a straight male, 30, in a long-term monogamous relationship. I love my wife, we have good sex, and often. When we first got together, I had a mild foot fetish, and she has gorgeous pedis. We have done and still do foot play on occasion. But my fetish has grown stronger as time has passed, and I have grown thirstier for her appendages. They are all I can think about. I am still willing to do everything with my partner and make sure she is satisfied. I don’t want anyone else, and the relationship is wonderful other than this issue. It’s just that she is not much into foot play and is rarely willing to partake. When she does, it is brief, and then we are on to the next. How can I relate to her my insatiable desire for her lovely appendages without sounding like an absolute freak?
Fighting Extreme Erotic Tension
A: I didn’t run your letter the first 10,000 times you sent it, FEET, because any regular reader of my column — and someone who emails me on a daily basis for three years is presumed to be a regular reader — would know what my advice would be in a case like yours: Level with your fucking wife about your boring fucking foot fetish already, you fucking coward.
You downplayed your kink at the start of your relationship, and you haven’t opened up to your wife about how your kink has grown in intensity over the years. So she may think those brief-and-on-to-the-next foot sessions are enough to satisfy what you’ve allowed her to believe is a mild foot fetish. Would those sessions be longer, more intense and freakier if she knew how central this was to your sexuality? There’s only one way to find out, FEET: Stop worrying about sounding like an “absolute freak” and come out to your partner as the absolute freak that you are.
Q: I’m a straight woman who has been married for 10 years. We’ve been in a rut, emotionally and sexually, for a few years. My closest girlfriends think we’re bored. Neither of us has done anything to harm or sabotage our marriage. We are very good together, and the love we have for one another is huge. I have plenty of male friends, but there is one I’ve been getting to know — a colleague — and he is a stellar human being. We really connect. He kissed me a few weeks ago. I liked it. I like him. The impact on my marriage has been strangely great. I disclosed everything to my husband. He said, “I couldn’t get in the way of your happiness. Is this something you need to explore?” This is the non-threatened response of someone who truly loves me. We’re communicating better now, our sex life is off the freakin’ chain, and it is evident that we’re committed to working through things as a couple. So why can’t I stop thinking of my colleague? I think of him all day long. I think of him when I’m making love to my husband. I don’t plan on seeing him anymore. He is a distraction to my marriage. But what on earth do you do to get someone out of your head?
Wanting It Forever
A: If you feel like spending time with your colleague is a genuine threat to your marriage, and if protecting your marriage from genuine threats is a priority (and it should be), then keep doing what you’re doing: Keep fucking your husband, keep avoiding your colleague, keep feeling your feelings (because what other choice do you have?), and with enough time and fucking and feeling, your crush on your colleague should wither away. But that said …
So far, it would appear that this affair — this emotional affair — has had a positive impact on your marriage. Far from threatening your marriage, your feelings for your colleague dislodged something that reinvigorated your marriage. (You’re out of that rut now, right?)
So if your colleague knew you were married and didn’t ask you to leave your husband, and if your husband didn’t threaten to divorce you, but asked if this — meaning something more than friendship with this colleague — was “something you need to explore,” you might be able to have a relationship with your colleague without having to end your marriage. Love isn’t always a zero-sum game.
On the “Savage Lovecast,” Dan and fashionista Simon Doonan talk fashion and get real bitchy at savagelovecast.com.
