Dear Dan: I’m a 49-year-old gay man. I’ve become friends with a 21-year-old straight guy. He’s really hot. He’s had to drop out of college and return home. I know he needs money, as he hasn’t found a job yet and has resorted to selling off old music equipment. I would love to have some sweaty clothes of his, namely his underwear, but I’d settle for a sweaty tank top. Is it legal to buy someone’s underwear? He’s a sweet guy, and I don’t want to freak him out by asking something so personal. How do I broach the subject?
— Lustfully Obsessed Stink Seeker
Dear LOSS: It’s perfectly legal to buy and sell used underwear, LOSS, so there’s no legal risk. But you risk losing this guy as a friend if you broach the subject. You can approach it indirectly by saying something like “So sorry to hear you’re selling off your music equipment. You’re young and hot — you could probably make more money selling used underwear or sweaty tanks.” Then follow his lead: If he’s disgusted by the suggestion, drop it. If he’s into the idea, offer to be his first customer.
Dear Dan: I am totally with your German friend, who wouldn’t do Nazi role-play “in six million years.” I’ve been in a similar position — not quite Holocaust level, but not far off. I’m a white British guy. A while back, while living in the UK, I was dating a woman from Bangalore. She revealed — after her face lit up when I dressed in a way that made me “look like a colonialist” (her words) — that her deepest fantasy was to be an Indian slave girl raped by an English imperialist. And then, living in the U.S. a few years later, I was dating a black woman. We got to talking about the kinks of exes. I told her about this one, and she revealed that her own fantasy was to be the slave on a 19th-century plantation, raped by her white owner. How about some advice for the human fetish objects in these scenarios, Dan? I didn’t want to stigmatize these women for their sexual desires, and I wanted to be GGG, but it was, frankly, hard (or not, as it were). Being asked to act out roles I feel guilty about, and to use the kind of racial epithets I make every effort to avoid… the guilt is a boner-killer. Any tips on how a GGG partner can get past this kind of mental block and at least act the role enthusiastically enough to fulfill the fantasy? Or was a subsequent girlfriend’s outrage about my willingness to indulge such socially regressive fantasies justified?
— I Might Play Every Role I’m Asked Less Ideologically-Scrupulous Motives
Dear IMPERIALISM: Actors play Nazis in hit movies, British colonialists for prestigious BBC miniseries, and serial killers on long-running television shows. I don’t see why playing monsters in entertainments devised for millions wins Oscars (Christoph Waltz for playing a Nazi in Inglourious Basterds), BAFTAs (Tim Pigott-Smith for playing a brutal colonialist in The Jewel in the Crown), and Golden Globes (Michael C. Hall for playing a sociopathic serial killer in Dexter), but playing a monster for an audience of one should outrage “subsequent girlfriends” or anyone else.
My advice for people asked to play monsters in the bedroom mirrors my advice to a gay guy attracted to degrading “antigay” gay porn: “A person can safely explore degrading fantasies — even fantasies rooted in ‘hate ideologies’ — so long as he/she is capable of compartmentalizing this stuff. Basically, you have to build a fire wall between your fantasies and your self-esteem. (And between your fantasies and your politics.)”
If you can build a fire wall between their fantasies and your politics and beliefs, IMPERIALISM, go for it. If you can’t, don’t.
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