Q I’m a young, straight, feminist male, and I’ve been dating my feminist girlfriend monogamously for almost two years. Recently I’ve been coming to terms with the fact that I’m turned on by rape fantasies. Of course, I find the idea of actual rape repugnant, and this is probably, I realize, an important reason why fantasizing about it turns me on. I sent out some feelers with my girlfriend by initiating a conversation about kinks and asking about what types of kinks she would hypothetically be comfortable accommodating. I asked her to imagine that I fantasized about feeling up women on the subway and wanted her to simulate and help realize that fantasy scenario with me. Her response was that I needed to be “cured” of my desires, and that she’d help me figure out and work through the psychological gender-power issues behind it, and to that end she’d try to show me how enjoyable consensual sex could be. My first thought was, “Well, that’s not GGG . . . ” but then I reconsidered: Would indulging that fantasy only reinforce patriarchal patterns of thought that I’ve worked to expunge from my brain? How much of a point does she have? —Feminist Rape Fantasist
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A DTMFA. Now, I’m not telling you to dump your girlfriend because she won’t let you feel her up on the subway, FRF. She isn’t obligated to help you realize your consensual-rape-lite fantasies. If that shit squicks her out, that shit squicks her out. But you can’t have a mutually fulfilling sexual or romantic relationship with a woman—feminist or not, squicked out by simulated nonconsensuality or not—whose first impulse when presented with a run-of-the-mill, completely consensual role-play scenario is to pathologize her partner and accuse him of not being aroused by consensual sex when consensual sex was precisely what he proposed.
We often ask each other, “What else can I do for you?” I’ve shared a couple ideas, which we’ve explored to my minimal comfort, but he always says “Nothing” when asked if there’s anything he wants to do or try. We’ve discovered that neither of us particularly cares if we ourselves reach orgasm, but we both care very deeply that the other is satisfied. In this light, while I don’t care much if the sex is mediocre for me, I do want it to be better for him. Do you have any suggestions? Are we doomed? —Still a Noob Apparently
A Both, of course, and you may not like the kind of lesbians that a come-and-lick-me T-shirt attracts. But when you’re single and feeling frustrated, and your pool of potential partners is drawn from roughly 2.5 percent of the population, it helps to move on all fronts, e.g., Web sites, bars, T-shirts. Your T-shirt might attract the attention of some jerks, lesbian or otherwise, but that’s why God gave us Mace.
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