DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My husband wants to experiment in BDSM play, specifically being dominated.  I’m on board with this but he either won’t or can’t tell me what he wants.  I’ve tried suggesting different ideas but he says no to all of them.  I think he hope that I’ll just do some stuff that he’ll like.  How can I make him understand that none of this can happen without having some frank conversations about expectations, rolls and boundaries?  I need some guidance! 

Domme In Distress

DEAR DOMME IN DISTRESS: I think your husband has a very specific – and possibly porn-inspired – fantasy about what BDSM is. My guess is that he thinks that if he’s at all involved with the planning, or if he’s aware of any planning at all, that the whole thing isn’t “real”.

It’s similar to how couples tend to think that planning when you’re going to have sex makes it less special somehow. In reality, making plans is one of the best things you can do for keeping things hot; not only does it ensure that you’ve reserved time and made arrangements to keep that particular appointment, but you get all of that lovely antici…

…

…pation leading up to it.

Now, when it comes to BDSM scenes, planning isn’t just hot, it’s goddamn required. To start with, you’re right: you need to know where his yes’, his no’s and hell no’s are. The fact that you’re the domme and he’s the sub doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have boundaries or limits… or control for that matter. It’s a cliche amongst kinksters, but subs are the ones who’re in control of the scene. After all, they’re the ones who have the power to call things off. And it’s important to know what he’s into and not into because you, as his domme, need to know how to execute those fantasies effectively and safely. Kink is a full-contact sport after all, and doing it wrong can cause serious damage. For example: Tie someone’s hands wrong, and you can potentially cause serious nerve damage.

So if your husband wants to be dominated, he’s going to need to be a full and active partner in this.

But here’s a way you can thread this needle: tell him he’s going to tell you what he wants. If he’s going to be a good little sub, then he needs to provide his domme with his list of yes/no/maybe. Otherwise, he’s going to have to just sit there and live without… especially if he has to sit there and watch you watch some BDSM porn from Kink.com.

While you’re getting his list, you should do your due diligence too. There’re a number of excellent books to help ease you into the scene; I especially recommend  Midori’s Wild Side Sex: The Book of Kink, Violet Blue’s The Ultimate Guide to Sexual Fantasy and Tristan Taormino’s The Ultimate Guide to Kink: BDSM, Role Play and the Erotic Edge. There’re also sites like KinkAcademy that provide excellent instructional videos.

And if you want to stoke the fires a little, consider assigning him some reading material too. There’s a lot of BDSM erotica out there, even if most of it features male doms and female subs; giving him some food for fantasy might motivate him to get you that list and start that conversation a little quicker than just browsing Pornhub on his off-hours. You might want to check out Stjepan Sejic’s graphic novel Sunstone and it’s upcoming sequel Mercy; they’re gorgeous and sweet as well as being almost unspeakably sexy.

But remember: until you two have had that discussion – or series of discussions, for that matter – this can’t move forward. And that means your husband needs to be a good sub and do his part as well.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have recently gotten out of a long relationship and have gotten back into the world of dating. Now I have used dating apps before, but that was when I was 22. Being 26 now, I am beginning to feel that the dating world landscape has changed a lot.

I guess I will just start with my main question. How do you juggle chatting and dating multiple people when you are monogamist by nature? What has been happening is that I feel like I am being flooded with messages and likes by multiple girls and I am not sure how to handle it. In the past, it was almost always one at a time as I was not usually getting that much attention. I always though it was somehow associated with being nerdy, but now I am positive it was just my age and lack of dating experience. I have no idea how girls personally handle this, and I don’t think the amount of attention I am getting is particularly overloading, but it already making me a bit stressed.

I know a lot of other guy’s might read this and just roll their eyes, I am honestly am trying to find the right person, but don’t want to accidentally grow attached to someone who is not the right fit while ignoring someone that could be really compatible, just because I am feeling too tired to interact with them. I have already avoided messaging back to people or even viewing the message so that way I can give myself some breather and then try to dedicate the right time to actually get to know them properly.

My second issue is dealing with what will happen when I start going out on a few dates. I know once I start to feel it out I will gravitate towards one person. That means that the girls I have talked to I will have to let them know that I am not interested in that way. It makes me feel terrible, yet I don’t really feel its inherently wrong. If I am lucky, I may not have to deal with that and the girls I don’t have as much chemistry with will feel the same way (cross fingers).

My plan is to just take deep breaths, not worry, and things will probably just sort themselves out over time.

Thanks for listening,

A Monogamous Guy

DEAR A MONOGAMOUS GUY: You’re seriously overthinking things AMG. The fact that you’re getting lots of attention and messages on the apps doesn’t mean that you’re somehow betraying your monogamist nature; it just means that you’re popular and have multiple options. It’s not as though just talking to potential matches starts the countdown to a committed relationship that you can’t get out of; all that’s going on is that you’re starting to get to know people. Maybe they’ll intrigue you enough to go on a date – a date, singular – with them and see how it goes. Maybe after chatting, you’ll realize there’s no real emotional chemistry there.

Similarly, going on a date, or even a string of dates with someone doesn’t lock you in to a relationship with them. You’ve just gone on some dates; until the two of you actually have that Defining The Relationship talk where you both agree that you’re exclusive, then you’re hardly making an unbreakable commitment.

Also: you don’t really need to give all those other women a formal Thanks But No Thanks once you’ve started something committed with somebody. It’s generally accepted that the connections you’re making via Tinder, OKCupid or what-not are weak and without any real expectation of commitment. If you two’ve been talking for a while and have gone on a date or two then yes, it’s polite to say “hey, it’s been great meeting you but I don’t think we’re right for one another. Good luck with your search!” But if it’s just been casual chit-chat that might lead up to an actual date? Then just let things fade on their own. Conversations dry up and people just quit talking; that’s part of the online dating experience. Most people assume that the folks they’re talking to are also talking to other people. Sometimes that means they’re going to decide they’re taking a chance with someone else, and the other conversations just fade away. It’s an expected part of how things go on the apps.

To be perfectly honest, AMG, I think you’re inventing trouble for yourself. You’ve let yourself get so stressed over the things you imagine that you haven’t even taken the first step to deal with the reality of it all. Take a deep breath, check out the profiles of the people who’ve messaged you. If they interest you, then talk to them for a little and see if that interest goes further. If you two get along, propose a pre-date date where you meet for 15 minutes for coffee and see if you two have sufficient physical chemistry to go on a proper date. If their profile doesn’t interest you? Then just ignore the message and move on.

You’ll be fine.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I could really use some smart advice right now! For most of my life, I’ve only been with one man. He’s good-looking, has a great job, my friends and parents like him, and most importantly, he genuinely loves and cares for me. I never questioned being together but quite randomly after many years, I started wondering if there was more to life. I started getting antsy and wondering what dating other men would be like, and I also really wanted to explore kinkier sex like BDSM and toys (to which he is strongly disinclined). So I left… in search of meeting new people who are more sexually open-minded and simultaneously getting some brand new dating experiences under my belt. So far, I’m meeting many nice gentlemen and enjoying the tension flirting a lot, along with exploring this sort of caged sexual energy (this I’m really enjoying). 

However, the issue is, it’s difficult not to draw a comparison back to my ex each time. Either I feel lukewarm about these guys, or if I really start to like someone I feel like they would never love me back the way my ex did. I’m scared I made a huge mistake, and that I shouldn’t have tossed years of love and loyalty over monotony and vanilla sex. I think about how we could build a very steady, loving, PG-13 life together which might be better for me than going out in search of adventure and wilding out.

Do you have any advice for me? I’m really not sure what’s the right thing to do.

Pterrified Pterodactyl

DEAR PTERRIFIED PTERODACTYL: Sexual satisfaction and sexual compatibility are incredibly important to a relationship’s success, PP. From the sounds of things, you weren’t enjoying either.

As much as someone may be perfect in every which way but one, that one can very easily be the thing that sinks a relationship… and when that one thing is sex, you can expect a whole lot of cultural push-back. We live in a culture that teaches us that sex is unimportant until it suddenly is… like when someone who is in a relationship is realizing that his or her sexual needs aren’t being met and wants to break up because of it.

You’re kinky and wanted to explore that side of you… and your ex didn’t. If you weren’t able to come up with some sort of compromise, then your relationship was going to explode on it’s own at some point. Either you would’ve had an affair – which, let’s be honest, would be the emotional equivalent of slamming your hand down on the Relationship Self-Destruct Button – or you would’ve broken up anyway. I hate to dip into Don Henley songs, but sometimes love just ain’t enough.

Now, I think you have two problems here. The first is that you’ve bought into the sex-negative narrative that sex is less important than just about every other aspect of a relationship. As a result, you’re beating yourself up for having ended a relationship for sex – as though this is some minor thing, that your need for sexual fulfillment is unimportant and you’re selfish for wanting it. As though you’re a bad person for being kinky and you’re doing something damaging to yourself As though your sexuality isn’t an important part of your life and identity, but something you can just, I dunno, wish into the damn cornfield where you’ll never have to deal with it again and enjoy basic missionary sex for the rest of your life like a good little wife.

Nah, screw that. That’s not how sexuality works. If you weren’t able to find some sort of compromise with your partner… well, yeah, you were basically going to be in a relationship with a loving supporting guy where you were f

king miserable.  How, exactly, is this better for you?

The other problem is that you’ve given yourself a false dichotomy, where you can have either a  steady, loving relationship or crazy kinky sex. Being in a loving relationship doesn’t mean that it’s strictly boring, PG-13 sex, nor does having crazy sexy adventures and experimentation means forgoing a significant other. There’s nothing stopping you from being super-kinky adventuress within a monogamous relationship. You can be in a steady and loving relationship that has a compromise allowing you to get your needs met elsewhere – taking part in the BDSM community, for example – if your partner isn’t up for it. You can be in a loving and supportive open relationship, a polyamorous one… honestly, the sky is the limit. You and your partner (or partners) are allowed to make the rules for how your relationship works.

Here’s what’s going on: you’re becoming your authentic self. You’ve found a side to yourself that you never knew was there but had been there all that time. You now know who you are and what you need far better and more intimately than you did before. Let go of the guilt that’s telling you you’re a bad person for wanting the sex you want; that’s just the voice of your jerk-brain messing with you, the sound of a culture that insists that non-standard sex is bad and women aren’t allowed to own their own sexuality. Find yourself a partner (or partners) who is loving and wonderful but is also sexually compatible with you whether he’s GGG in indulging your kinks or lets you fulfill the ones he can’t meet.

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I have a question about my best friend who is having problems with his relationship. I’ve been trying to give him advice the best I could but I’m lost here so I thought you could help.

My friend, let’s call him, Bruno, has been seeing this one girl for a while now. Based on what he’s told me the relationship been going okay. That is until now. The relationship has been causing a strain on him. The girlfriend hasn’t been respecting his feelings about certain things. She’s been sending nearly nude, teasing pictures of herself to her ex-boyfriend, and even admitted to my friend Bruno that she loves both him AND her ex.

Basically, she’s been exhibiting behavior that has caused my friend not to trust her and fear that she may be cheating on him with her ex (she assures him she’s not). This has caused Bruno to feel, anxious, stressed, and he could not sleep for a while because of this.

What’s your take on the situation? What should he do? He knows he has to break up with her but he loves her too much.

Friend In Need

DEAR FRIEND IN NEED: The answer is glaringly obvious: Bruno needs to dump this woman so hard her grandparents divorce retroactively. There’s really no question; everything about the way he describes her behavior is telling him that she doesn’t care about him, doesn’t respect him and doesn’t care about the damage she’s doing to somebody she supposedly loves.

Even if she’s not actually sleeping with her ex, she’s still causing Bruno some serious pain by continuing to flirt and send him sexy pictures. It’d be one thing if Bruno was ok with it — hey, some dudes are cool with that — but he’s not. It’s hurting him. Badly. That’s unacceptable, full stop.

The thing is though: Bruno seems unwilling to actually DO something about it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not blaming him for her actions. But there comes a point where he needs to quit complaining and actually step up if he wants things to change.

Either he hasn’t said anything to her – which just means it’s going to continue – or he HAS confronted her and absolutely nothing has changed, which means that she doesn’t care. Either way, Bruno’s inaction is a sign that he isn’t willing to enforce his boundaries; as a result, he’s stuck in a relationship with an incredibly toxic person who is just riding roughshod over his heart. And one major part of enforcing boundaries is being unwilling to put up with that. 

If she’s not going to change her behavior – and it sounds like she isn’t going to – then the best thing he can do is refuse to be part of it and take off like all of hell and half of Hoboken was after him.

OK, so he says he loves her. Fine. Then Bruno has to ask himself WHY he loves someone who is treating him like garbage. Time for your buddy to peace out, cub scout, and learn to establish some firm boundaries or he’s going to find himself right back in the same situation with somebody else.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: A few days back, my girlfriend bumped into someone she knew from school but hadn’t connected to since at the subway stop. They chatted for a bit, and then her train came. To her surprise, the guy got on the train with her despite the fact that it was not going in the direction that he was. During the trip, he mentioned several times how lonely he was, and how bitter and angry that makes him. In school, my girlfriend had been kind to this person after his diagnosis with Aspergers, during which time he shared that he had suicidal tendencies. Now, she’s worried that he doesn’t have anyone with whom he can share these feelings. Other than a mutual appreciation of the same TV series, they don’t have anything in common.

This evening, the person sent my girlfriend an email asking to go to a movie together. On one hand, she feels like she has a responsibility to help someone so obviously in need of companionship. On the other, she has no interest in spending any more time with the guy, and has neither the time or energy to become this person’s emotional support system, because she’ll be starting an intensive program in Engineering soon. She doesn’t want to agree to one meeting and give the impression that she wants to be his BFF, but she doesn’t want the guilt of ghosting him or turning him down and later learning that he had hurt himself or others. He doesn’t seem to take hints very well, or he wouldn’t have followed her home.

Should she give him the one hang out he wants, or should she find a way to turn him down gently? She wants my advice, but I don’t know what to say.

What About Bob?

DEAR WHAT ABOUT BOB: It’s good that your girlfriend is concerned about this guy’s feelings, WaB. But there’s a difference between “being concerned about someone” and “signing on to be their emotional cruise director.”

One of the issues that comes up with folks who are in the center of the Venn diagram with “lonely” on one side and “socially awkward” on the other is that they tend to imprint on the first person to be nice to them like an awkward duckling. Which can be sweet at times but it’s also exhausting; more often than not, it means that they’re putting all of their emotional intimacy eggs into that one metaphorical basket. That in and of itself is a problem, but it also means that they tend to rely on that person for all of their future social connections.

And then there’s the fact that this dude is waving some red flags around. Getting on the train going in the wrong direction to keep talking to her… ok, he may not quite get appropriate behavior. It’s still creepy, but it’s a one-off. However, that plus advertising his bitterness and rage AND dropping subtle hints about his loneliness… I can’t really blame your girlfriend for feeling weird about this guy.

Plus: she’s got her own life to live. She’s busy as it is, and her job isn’t to be this dude’s therapist, surrogate or nursemaid. And this guy is already giving signs of attaching himself to her like a lovesick lamprey.

Look, this is a case where there won’t be just one hang-out. If she meets up with him once, she’s going to be opening up the door to even more demands on her time… and she’ll feel guilty not giving it to him. Blame the same socialization that women go through that teaches them to be overly-giving to others, even at the expense of themselves.

The best thing your girlfriend can do is turn him down, gently but firmly. It’s important that she makes it clear that she’s not interested in hanging out with him; a soft “no” like “I can’t, I’m busy right now” will be read as a “…so keep trying.” She doesn’t have to be cruel or harsh about it, but she should be clear that she’s not available or interested in hanging out with him.

The other thing to keep in mind: she’s not responsible for whatever he does or doesn’t do after she turns him down. That’s bullshit that people try to use to leverage others – especially women – into doing things they don’t want to do. Just as Shana Fisher wasn’t responsible for Dimitrios Pagourtzis shooting up the school in Santa Fe, Texas, your girlfriend isn’t on the hook for this guy’s actions. He may be lonely, he may be autistic, but he still is making choices of his own free will. That’s on him. 

Tell your girlfriend the best thing she can say is “thanks but no thanks, best of luck on your search.”

Good luck.

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I am a screw-up trying to unscrew his screw-ups with women. Several things happened in my freshman year that reinforced my need to get better with interacting with women: I was falsely accused of stalking a girl in my orientation group, I torched a friendship with a female friend after groping her by accident and making her even more uncomfortable in my attempts to apologize, and learned that I had creeped out the girl I’d had a crush on since the beginning of the year. This is compounding on the screw-ups with women I had during high school, and suffice it to say, there are a lot of them. 

I was tired of repeating history, so I went Google searching for advice on not creeping out women, which is how I found your ‘Don’t Be A Creep’ series of articles. I learned about “soft ‘no’s”, “oneitis”, the importance of eye contact and observation of personal space, and a bunch of other helpful stuff, and for a while, it seemed to work. I fully realized some of the creepy actions I’ve done in my past, reached out to the people I could and apologized. I apologized to my crush and became, if not friends, someone she’s OK having around. I kicked porn and masturbation for four months and enjoyed the results. It was a little exhilarating. 

Well, school’s out and reality came crashing in. I had talked a little to my ex-friend, and she said she was open to me texting her, which I tried and got left on read. I had gotten my crush’s Snapchat a few weeks before school was out; it’s going on 3 weeks into summer, and she still hasn’t added me back. I tried to contact a victim of my creepiness and got no response, not even a ‘Read [insert time]’, which makes me believe she blocked my number, a horrible feeling. Porn and masturbation came crashing in, and my streak was broken within 48 hours of being home. I know I’m not entitled to forgiveness or love or whatever it is I’m looking for, but that doesn’t change the fact that the lack of whatever I’m looking for SUCKS. 

Coming home from school made me realize what was seemingly a lot of old feelings going away was just a delayed reaction, and they’ve all come back with a vengeance. That ‘I’m going to die alone’ feeling. That ‘accept your fate’ feeling. That ‘Scarlet Letter, every girl on the planet knows you’ve done some creepy stuff and wouldn’t want to be around you for a million dollars’ feeling. That ‘I’m the only one who feels this way and has these problems’ feeling. I know these are all BS, but yet another thing I’ve learned this year is the huge difference between comprehension and acceptance.

So I guess the advice I’m looking for throughout all of this gut-spilling is: what do I do moving forward? How do I take the blinders off and see the mistakes I’m seeing in the present instead of with hindsight’s 20/20? Is there some way to go from comprehension to acceptance with what’s probably never going to happen? Is there some sabotaging aspect of myself you can see that I can’t? Give me a diagnosis, Doc. Believe me, I need it. 

Needing The Truth

DEAR NEEDING THE TRUTH: OK NTT, remember that you asked for this. This is going to be harsh, but I promise you: go through all of this and you’ll come out a better person on the other side.

Here’s the mistake you made and are STILL making: you haven’t processed the fact that apologizing for being a creeper doesn’t make things better if you don’t change the way you act.

Apologies are great, but they’re just the START of the process. The next step is to QUIT behaving like a creeper. Part of this entails accepting the consequences of your actions. You’ve made people feel deeply uncomfortable, and those people may very well not want you around afterwards, even with your apology. People aren’t always going to give you a second chance, and frankly, that’s their prerogative. They’re neither required to accept your apology nor give you another chance, and it’s on you to accept this.

And honestly? You haven’t. You’re trying to act like what you’ve done has been erased and it hasn’t. It can take people time to feel comfortable around you again; rushing in like everything’s back to the pre-creepiness status quo just tells everybody that you don’t get WHY what you did creeped people out. Jumping on your crush’s Snapchat? That was exactly the sort of thing that tells them that you haven’t learned your lesson. This is the sort of behavior that makes people think “this is going to be exactly the same as it was last time.”

It takes time to earn people’s trust back – often months or even years. Some may never want you around again and hey, while that sucks? The only thing you can do is acknowledge their wishes and move on.

You need to take the L right now and accept that things are going to suck for a while as you show through your actions that you’ve learned and are a better person. That may mean that you’re going to have to let these people go and accept that they just don’t want to have anything to do with you going forward. Which, hey, sucks. But it is what it is. You can only learn from this so that you don’t f

k up the same way, next time.

And while you’re doing all this, you should take time to get some help. The answer to getting better emotionally isn’t joining the no-fap movement, it’s talking to a professional. Fortunately, you’re in college, which means you have access to low-cost, or even free mental health services. Make an appointment with the counselor and start talking all of this out. They’ll be able to help you process everything you’re feeling and give you some strategies to not only handle things, but to help move forward in a healthy and productive manner.

Good luck.

Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com)