Q I’m a straight guy in my 30s dating a woman in her mid-20s. We’ve been together for a year, and I’m crazy about her. In love, even. She’s gorgeous, sweet, kind, loving, and very sexual. She’s perfect. In her late teens and early 20s, she had a wild sex life. She attended sex parties, had loads of NSA hookups, sexted with random guys she met online, etc. She revealed this to me slowly and carefully out of fear that I’d look down on her, but what she didn’t know is that I have an intense cuckold interest. I’ve asked her, ad nauseam, for every detail she can recall about these encounters. The ones centering on “alpha jocks” with extremely large cocks are the ones I enjoy most. I’m a nerdy guy, definitely not muscular or athletic. I have intense fantasies of some alpha male taking her away from me, or catching her with a hot young soccer player or a good-looking musician—any guy at the top of the social pile. The idea of watching her have sex with one of them is exhilarating. But it’s also gut-wrenching. I haven’t told her how much I would like her to go through with an actual hookup. However, I’m certain this would not be well received on her part; she’s made it clear that she’s not proud of her wild past. To complicate this, my interest in cuckolding does not come from a healthy place. I experienced a series of rejections in my late teens and early 20s, all of which involved being outclassed by better guys. The first girl I was ever in love with, who kept stringing me along, had sex with another guy while talking to me on the phone. She went into detail about how huge his penis was, how good it felt, and so forth, while I shook with envy and misery and excitement. It was a terrible, traumatizing experience, but now it rules my sexual fantasies. Is it OK to indulge an interest that likely stems from a traumatic experience? (Assuming she’s willing.) —Harrowingly Upsetting Reckless Tendencies Mostly Excite

As for you, HURTME, your erotic imagination seized on that experience—that cruel girl on the phone—and through a mysterious process that sex researchers don’t quite understand, your mildly-to-wildly-traumatizing early sexual experience emerged in adulthood as a full-blown kink. There may be other boys out there who had the exact same experience—that girl could have had other victims—who don’t have any interest in being cuckolded. The alchemy of kinks isn’t fully understood.

QI’m a gay man married to a wonderful man. For most of our 12-year relationship, we’ve had a boring sexual script that is all about him getting blown. He just doesn’t seem interested in much else, and although we’ve talked about it over the years, nothing has really changed. He is selfish in bed. He’s a wonderful husband otherwise, and I love him deeply. Recently, he was out of town, and in a weak moment, I ended up meeting an experienced spanking dom. We’ve met several times, and I’m counting the days until he whales on my butt again. Not in my wildest imagination could or would my husband EVER do something like this with me. He just doesn’t have it in him. I am more sexually fulfilled than I have been in a decade. I’m also lying and cheating. I’m deeply torn. If I tell my husband, my guess is that he won’t take it well. It could cause our marriage to unravel. If I keep lying, I bear the moral burden of the lie, and he could find out anyway. —Still Professing a Normal Kink