http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/01/28/sl-letter-of-the-day-be-a-little-selfish Comments On: SL Letter of the Day: Be a Little Selfish by Dan Savage en-us Copyright 2013 The Stranger. All rights reserved. This RSS file is offered to individuals, The Stranger readers, and non-commercial organizations only. Any commercial websites wishing to use this RSS file, please contact The Stranger. webmaster@thestranger.com (The Stranger Webmaster) Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:00:01 -0700 Tue, 18 Jun 2013 00:45:00 -0700 Foundation http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss
The couple from whom I really would want a follow-up would be the LW whose BF insisted on humiliating him in the bedroom. That LW did write back in that he was well-treated otherwise, but I still have had the odd worry about him from time to time. I sometimes picture him dumped (a la Mrs G) and unable to form the new relationship his better self wants.
Posted by vennominon]]> Wed, 30 Jan 2013 18:29:41 -0800 The Stranger Posted by EricaP]]> Wed, 30 Jan 2013 10:37:15 -0800 The Stranger Posted by Megaera]]> Wed, 30 Jan 2013 06:57:47 -0800 The Stranger Posted by asymptoticbliss]]> Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:59:54 -0800 The Stranger deserves to be dumped. Dumps fit the DTMFA model, or, if they differ, are only done in a timely manner that negates the Already. One dumps Won't, but parts amicably from Can't.

There is a subset of dumps in which the fault lies with the Dumper. In such a case, Dumper may perceive it as a dump or may be trying to part amicably, but Dumpee is so aggrieved for cause that one might well hear the complaint TMFDM. (Classic example - the cancerous Mrs Gingrich dumped while lying in her hospital bed.)

It's tricky to explain, but largely a question of attitude. If you are still friends with all your exes, it seems unlikely that you would go around saying that you dumped any of them, as there's so much disrespect if not contempt in the phrase. Even if you didn't personally mean it so, you'd likely pick up on other people thinking less of your dumpees and ease out of using the D word where it would not give the most accurate impression. I pay you the compliment of assuming that you would not stick a big scarlet D on your friends.

As for breaking up/ending the relationship, I think there is a useful distinction that could be drawn, but it matters a lot less than the difference between either and the D word. A breakup ideally would imply either full ownership of the split or meeting a certain standard of acrimony. But I have no wish to spend any capital on this distinction.

A portion of the usefulness of the Dump distinction could well lie in that one might disagree with a self-proclaimed dumper that the situation called for a dump. (Semi-classic example - the woman who met the Magic the Gathering world champion on a dating site, saw him a couple of times, then wrote an indignant article along the line of, How Dare He consider himself suitable dating material when he plays a collectible card game, and expected universal congratulations over having "dumped" him.)
Posted by vennominon]]> Wed, 30 Jan 2013 05:54:27 -0800 The Stranger
Thanks, by the way, for the Murdoch assist...
Posted by EricaP]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 22:17:49 -0800 The Stranger
On the other hand, if we are so far gone into Dump Culture that you think End the Relationship is absolutely equal to Dump, then maybe the war is already lost and Julius King has taken over the earth. (To save you time, he's the antihero of A Fairly Honourable Defeat.) I knew it was too early in the month for optimism.
Posted by vennominon]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 21:14:47 -0800 The Stranger @41 If she's just saying dominate me and toss me around like a rag doll to someone who has never done that before, she's likely not going to get what she wants.Well, not right away. "Noob" is not synonymous with "hopeless", but I do concede that it's difficult for a sub to teach without taking an ascendant role, and agree with @39 that he seems submissive and so probably won't take the dom role. He and the gf seem to be trying hard for each other, but one does question whether they're a match.
Posted by seeker6079]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:32:16 -0800 The Stranger

Posted by Corylea]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 13:21:08 -0800 The Stranger
She needs to give more explicit directions, but perhaps isn't because it runs counter to her submissive role - telling him what to do makes her less submissive. And rather than temporally stepping out of her submissive role, her way of showing her bf what to do without giving up her submission satisfaction took the form of having a threesome with the ex.

Also, his timidness during sex could be a personality trait that he can't break out of, or it could just be a complete lack of confidence in executing her wishes.
Posted by pb1230]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:30:06 -0800 The Stranger
He could have a cuckold fetish, or he just might be really into run of the mill group-sex.


Posted by pb1230]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:16:05 -0800 The Stranger However, he doesn't turn me on. It has nothing to do with looks—he's GORGEOUS—but rather with the fact that I am submissive and like things rough (rape fantasies, being tied up, etc.). He is GGG and tries, but he is just too timid. ... I talked to my wonderful GGG boyfriend, and he agreed right away to have a threesome with my previous guy. ***(bolding for emphasis)
I'm relieved to see more than a couple of commentors above who have suggested the GGG bf may have a cuckold fetish. Personally, I don't think anything instructive would have come about from the threesome, simply because the bf is also submissive. And the LW chose him initially, not because she was attracted to him, but because he's (all caps) GORGEOUS!

She may have been swayed by the superficial and ignored the fact that they are sexually incompatible. Sure, some people can switch from dom to sub and back, but somehow I think the current bf sounds just too darn eager to please (like a puppy) to be convincing as a dom.

Posted by Helenka (also a Canuck)]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 11:07:57 -0800 The Stranger Posted by secretagent]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:57:24 -0800 The Stranger Posted by hypha]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:09:55 -0800 The Stranger If you were raised by an old-school family (in the positive sense of the word) the notion of hitting a woman was considered loathsome

Hitting a woman is frowned upon in new school families, too. :-)

I suppose some women really want to be slapped in the face and choked and such, and personally, it would take me some time (and lots of trust) to work myself up to that. But I get the impression LW would be satisfied with some creative alpha-caveman-male role playing along with some good old fashioned rough-housing and swats on the ass, which is a categorically different kind of "hitting".

I understand that lots of guys aren't up for even that, but at the same time, I don't understand it all. The idea of a woman who wants you to have your way with her, who wants to submit to you and give herself to you in that way - I don't know, it just seems like universal erection material to me.

@EricaP is right, this relationship won't be good for either of them in the long run. I can't imagine LW would have difficulty finding a good man who would enjoy indulging her kinks, and I know there are plenty of women out there for her boyfriend who prefer making sweet tender love in a candlelit room with smooth jazz playing in the background.
Posted by seandr]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:53:09 -0800 The Stranger Posted by EricaP]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:35:29 -0800 The Stranger
seeker@21: I didn't mean crazy as in he needs to be medicated or institutionalized. Clearly I don't think people who like rough sex are mentally disturbed, since I'm one of them. But why does one leave a guy with whom one has fantastic sex? In my case, he was crazy libertarian and at some point the hot sex wasn't worth it any more.

seeker@26/27: To me, the issue is not that he doesn't want to hit her. I agree that the social conditioning is strong but people can work through that together. But what's the point of working through it together if the baseline attraction isn't there? If she had written: "he turns me on so much but how do I get him to hit me for real," my answer would be different.
Posted by EricaP]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:34:41 -0800 The Stranger
Dan, it would make a great book to hear the follow-up stories to some of your letters. I'm sure it could help a lot of people and be interesting to the rest of us.
Posted by Bugnroolet]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:34:24 -0800 The Stranger Posted by pb1230]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 06:46:53 -0800 The Stranger
Recall that, very recently, I think it was a Podcast call from a woman in a similar situation, and the D word was applied equally to both Can't Meet Your Needs and Won't Meet Your Needs. I dislike D culture and am almost encouraged that in such a similar case neither Mr Savage nor any of the comments have applied the D word.
Posted by vennominon]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 06:41:52 -0800 The Stranger dactyliomancy?
Posted by seeker6079]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:59:19 -0800 The Stranger
Nobody used the D word. This is almost encouraging, but I am never encouraged this early in the month.
Posted by vennominon]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:42:46 -0800 The Stranger
I agree that there was some wit in it, but wit can be nasty. A topical case in point would be how Mrs Crawley accepted Mrs Bird's resignation on Downton Abbey. Upset that Mrs Crawley proposed to hire a former prostitute, Mrs Bird tendered her resignation, saying that she would go to her sister, who'd told her she could easily find an opening for a plain cook, drawing the reply, "They will certainly find that in you." Mrs Bird then expressed her fear that, if she did stay on and work with Ethel, people might think she herself had followed that profession. "No one would look at you and think that, Mrs Bird."

That actually struck me as almost lifted from Agatha Christie's The Secret Adversary. When Tommy and Tuppence met up after WWI and formed Young Adventurers, Ltd., Tuppence revealed her determination to marry a millionaire if she could find one, claiming that she had never been sentimental. Tommy readily agreed that, "Nobody would ever think of sentiment in connection with you."
Posted by vennominon]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:39:07 -0800 The Stranger Posted by seeker6079]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:37:01 -0800 The Stranger Posted by seeker6079]]> Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:22:00 -0800 The Stranger