Dear Dan: I’m a foot-fetish guy who split up with my girlfriend of four years. She was into all the foot stuff, and we got into lots of other kinks. My concern is about meeting new women. I’m worried I’m not going to be able to perform for vanilla sex. I feel almost doomed to being solo unless I meet someone who is into the same stuff I am. I was able to do vanilla with my ex, but I don’t know if I can do vanilla stuff with other girls. Do you have any advice on what I can do to change my mind-set? Is it possible for me to perform vanilla activities if I am present and relaxed with a girl?
— Just Asking You
Dear JAY: You told your last girlfriend about your kink, JAY, and you can tell your next girlfriend about it. Act like it’s no big deal — “I have a thing for feet” — because… it’s no big deal. But if you’re too shy to say anything, or you’re afraid of being dumped by a girl who’s a footfetish-phobe (you should be in a hurry for those girls to dump you), there’s only one way to find out if you can perform vanilla activities with a new girl: give it a try.
Dear Dan: I had an Ashley Madison account. But I did not create “my” account. Anyone can register an account using anyone’s e-mail address, and deleting fake accounts costs money. Now my e-mail address is on a public database of AM users. People with accounts on AM are victims of the hackers, which you thankfully addressed in your last column. But members — actual and fake — were first victims of Ashley Madison. Shitty security aside, AM is a hub of extortion: no e-mail verification, pay-todelete (not that your account is actually deleted!), and tons of fake accounts purporting to be women (to balance the real, paying accounts from men). My happily monogamish wife and I use OkCupid and FetLife, which helped us find our way to local swinger and BDSM clubs. There are websites that aren’t reliant on fake users and extortion to build and then entrap a user base.
— Fuck Ashley Madison Everywhere
Dear FAME: Thanks for sharing, FAME.
Dear Dan: I’m one of the men caught in the Ashley Madison hacker net. But as pissed as I am about the bullshit — the company’s lies about the security of its site, the hackers’ self-righteous moralizing — I can attest to the fact that one can get what one is looking for on that site. Yes, there were a lot of fake profiles. Yes, there were a lot of pros. Yes, there were women looking to steal your identity. Seriously. But once you figured out the game, you could find a lot of real women on that site who were looking for someone to spend time with. I’ll be pissed if I get busted as a result of all of this, but joining that site helped me reclaim my sanity after a sexless 25-year marriage.
— Don’t Attack This Adulterer
Dear DATA: Slogging through the Savage Love mail for the last 25 years has convinced me of this: Some married people have grounds to cheat. Men and women trapped in sexless or loveless marriages, men and women who have been abandoned sexually and/or emotionally by spouses they aren’t able to leave — either because their spouses are economically dependent on them (or vice versa) or because they may have children who are dependent on both partners. It would be wonderful if everyone who felt compelled to cheat could either negotiate an open relationship or end the one they’re in now, but there are cases where cheating is the least worst option for all involved.
Now, I don’t know the particulars of DATA’s marriage — why it’s been sexless for so long, what the damage is — but if seeking sex elsewhere allowed DATA to stay sane and stay married, and if the marriage is otherwise affectionate and low-conflict, and if DATA’s wife didn’t want to see her marriage end, DATA may have done her a favor by getting on Ashley Madison. Loyalty isn’t something we can demonstrate only with our genitals.
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