I hope this man's wife is on Mumsnet

[HollowTalk]

Article in The Guardian today - "My Life in Sex".

This is what the man says:

I met my wife at university, and we married when I was 27 and she was 25. We had a vanilla sex life for the first 10 years, after which I decided we should stop. For 29 years we have had no sexual contact. This lack of a physical relationship goes undiscussed and does not cause any tension. We both take it for granted and are rarely in the same room.

I can only assume my wife has remained celibate. Meanwhile, I get physical satisfaction from cottaging, something I started doing shortly after we married. I use a railway station toilet in London, as well as one in my local station and another near where I live.

My preference is for other married men. Picking them up is easy – you just stand at the urinal for as long as it takes. You can tell if other men are keen by whether they linger a little too long, then we make our way to a cubicle. The best time is when they travel home from work at six o’clock.

I enjoy the social status attached to being married and I still feel affection for my wife – just no physical desire. I went off sex with her because she was too emotional and clingy afterwards; I just wanted to go to sleep.

Sex with other married men is quick and involves little emotional commitment. There’s someone I’ve met several times, but I’m only interested in casual encounters. I like knowing I can give men something their wives can’t.

Same old nonsense, really - some from stupid people who have never thought about it (other than some vague 'normal' views about the superiority of heterosexual monogam)y and some from people who get thei own jollies by being OUTRAGED and trying to make other people stop enjoying sex.
Sexual ethics are not about being 'normal'. They are about making sure that the people you have sex with are as interested in it as you are. Having sex with 20 people a day is prefectly all right ( though you might need to stop for a biscuit now and again) as long as they are all as interested in doing so as you are.

Perfect example of a cerebral narcissist.

The issue is not that he is gay, but that he prefers casual distanced sexual experiences.

RSGB it doesn't only come down to the consent of the people you are having sex with though does it, if you have made a promise to someone else to only do it with them. If I had consensual sex with 20 men today (I need a wee rest just typing that) it wouldn't be ok as it would cause great hurt (and surprise) to the person I'm in a committed relationship with. So I get what you are saying, but it leaves out the element of prior commitment.

SGB you have a very skewed sense of normality.

What kind of world do you live and bring a child up in ?

Lots of men like casual distanced sexual encounters, prostitution wouldn’t be the oldest profession in the world if that weren’t the case. I’m astonished that so many people are so shocked.

What is shocking , but also amusing, is how the armchair psychologists on MN love to bandy terms like 'narcissist' about.

It takes a very long process to identify personality traits or psychological disorders and should only be done by those professionally qualified.

Analysing a short 'letter' which has been highly edited (I assume) and angled with the intention of provoking readers and selling papers is not quite the way to do it!

You need to appreciate that what you read in the media is edited and angled to provoke a response. This man may have been told to 'make it cold, make it unemotional, show disdain and disregard for your wife'. Of course, it may not have, but who's to know?

And to echo @Alsohuman, knowing what a gay man in my world gets up to, I can assure you that gay men (but not solely gay men) are very good at having quick sex where there is no emotional connection at all. They just want a fuck, with anyone willing. This is partly how AIDs was spread because many gay men are highly promiscuous (and yes, before the pearl clutching, not all- some are happy with a monogamous setting.)

I'm bringing my child up to understand that consent is the thing that matters when it comes to sex, and that different people like and want different things. Has it ever occurred to those of you howling and bleating about how 'awful' it is to have NSA sex with strangers that the imposition of heterosexual monogamy on everyone is harmful? That the fetishisation of 'respectability' has been hideously cruel (and particularly bad for women, because it's always really been about men being able to own women and control reproduction - men just insist their imaginary friend requires women to submit to male ownership) And that, maybe, if everyone could just have as much (or as little) sex as they wanted, the world might be a happier place?

You seem determined to make this about promiscuity SGB but you're ignoring the main discussion which is about exhibitionism, cottaging, dogging etc.

Bystanders, toilet users, dog walkers etc don't get the chance to consent or otherwise. They're being used as the 'exciting' risk element in other people's exhibitionism. That's why there are laws about indecent exposure, public indecency and so on.

Yes, it's a really stigmatising conflation to insist that gay men are sexully incontinent.

Having sex with 20 people a day is prefectly all right ( though you might need to stop for a biscuit now and again) as long as they are all as interested in doing so as you are

Eh? There is SO much more to it, than this.

1. The man is married and made vows to his wife

2. The men he is shagging are married, and I presume still having sex with their wives, thus exposing them to disease

3. The sex takes place in a public toilet and could be seen by other people, who have the right to be able to use a public toilet without having to see this. This could be a child, which would be even worse.

4. The man delights in the lies that he is telling his wife - the person he is supposed to love more than anyone else.

If you think the above is all okay, because the 2 people having the sex are consenting, then you have a very 2 dimensional view.

I would also ask you to think about how you would feel, if your child came to you in tears one day, saying that they had discovered that their husband/wife, had been cheating on them, with up to 20 strangers a day, in the local toilets. Would you be horrified for them, or just say that was fine, as long as their Partner and the other person were consenting?

Someone should send him the grindr app.

Save him a lot of hovering around in cold, smelly loos.

@Huskylover1 What lies has he told his wife? He says they do not discuss any of this.
Disease- condoms?

Other men's wives- still having sex- you and I have no idea.

I for one do not believe everything in this feature.

I can't see for a start how he knows the men are married (assume he means to a woman) unless they are wearing a wedding ring which he clocks first OR he asks them (unlikely.)

I assume he means he prefers married men because it makes the whole thing less complicated- no one becomes attached to him or emotionally demanding.

Please be aware that all these articles are edited. There may be more to it that wasn't published owing to space on the page.

We are reading something designed to be provocative.

And has it ever worked!

@Huskylover1 What lies has he told his wife? He says they do not discuss any of this

Oh, come on! He must have to tell some porkers to account for why he isn't home on time, or lie about where he is going.

And do you honestly think that when he withdrew sex and affection, when they were in their 30's, that his poor wife didn't ask him continually what was wrong? She no doubt turned herself inside out wondering what the fuck was happening in her own marriage. She has obviously accepted it now, but no-one stops having sex and then it just never gets mentioned again.

Disease- condoms? Yes, because we all know that men prefer to wear condoms and will use one when they aren't asked to (by their wives, who think they are in a monogamous relationship).

Other men's wives- still having sex- you and I have no idea Most married couples are having sex. If they're not, there'll be a good few women out there wondering why their DH has withdrawn affection, and that's almost as shitty as him being unfaithful.

You don't need to ask people if they're married, the ring kind of gives the game away.

We are reading something designed to be provocative I think the right word would be seedy and sad. I'm no prude, I love sex, but this is just all so fucking grim.

@HuskyLover 1 You are so sure you are right on this, but in all honesty it's all fiction in your own head.

For every point you make, I can come back at you with what may be the facts.

If you read the letter, he says they do not discuss it. This does not mean she has not wondered what's up. But it does mean she is not asking him any more.

I could name 3 close friends of mine around this age who have had sexless marriages for a long time, mainly the women who no longer fancy their DHs but they stay together (for children, security, finances. And that's just my own small social circle.) So it's not a rare as you'd like to make out.

Why would he belying? If he commutes or travels with work, being 10 minutes late is perfectly plausible. 'Bad traffic' etc etc. BUT that is not the point. She clearly knows. No one can live like that for 30 years and not have an inkling. He won't need to lie.

Condoms- well, not sure is you are being sarcy, but unless he wants HIV +, he may well be careful.

Wedding rings? My DH doesn't have one and I know loads of men who don't.

We are reading something designed to be provocative
I think the right word would be seedy and sad. I'm no prude,

You're missing the point. That is what the editor perhaps wanted it to be. I didn't mean the writer . I was talking about how features are angled (I write for broadsheets.)

Quite aside from the talk of what gay men get up to in public toilets, I think it’s incredibly naive to think that the wife is some poor heartbroken woman sitting at home wondering why her husband doesn’t want her any more - twenty years on.

As someone up-thread said, these articles are written as to be deliberately provocative. If they stopped having sex 20 years ago it’s entirely probable that she knows they are only together for the sake of being together, and because it’s easier than splitting up.

Do people really think that if he’s a bit late home from work she just believes that he’s working late? Come on, nobody is that naive are they?

The women who are generally shocked at these kinds of revelations are usually the ones who didn’t realise anything was wrong in the marriage. Who were still having regular sex only to find out what their husbands were up to.

She knows their marriage is sexless. It’s been sexless for 20 years now. And while she may not know the extent of what he gets up to, there’s no way she wouldn’t suspect that he at the very least has had sex with others.

People need to give women mor credit than that rather than turning them into helpless victims because it suits their narrative to do so.

Having a cool, amazing, non-vanilla sex life is all very well SGB but not when it adversely affects others. The men in this article's spouses for example. The people who encounter these men when they just need the toilet.

I live near a popular hook up and dogging site. It gets pretty tedious with the condoms and tissues in the bushes and the possibility of catching someone getting a blowy when you're just trying to exercise your dog. They are literally disgusting fuckers and if that makes me a pearly clutchy square, I couldn't give less of a shit about it.

Jingling I'm not entirely sure what your point is? You say that the article will have been edited to make it more provocative. But even without any editing, the very basic detail, is that this man cheats on his wife with other men, in public toilets. I'm not sure any editing could make this situation any grimmer.

I could name 3 close friends of mine around this age who have had sexless marriages for a long time, mainly the women who no longer fancy their DHs but they stay together (for children, security, finances. And that's just my own small social circle.) So it's not a rare as you'd like to make out

Also entirely grim, to stay with someone you no longer fancy, just for money. And I say this as a woman who walked away from a cheating DH, even though he was the major breadwinner and earned a six figure salary. Because no man can buy me, I'm afraid. I knew I'd be drastically worse off financially, but I did it anyway. And I actually fell in love with someone else (who I am now married to). And no amount of money can buy that.

And i'd like to add locally it is heterosexual couples and gay couples involved. It isn't the orientation that annoys me, it's the mess and the seediness spoiling the place for other people.

@Huskylover1, it really isn’t grim for a woman of retirement age to refuse to walk away from half of the assets she’s worked for all her life. I explained this to you upthread and you have no answer to it.

It’s easy to say and do when you’re in your 30s or 40s, it’s ridiculous to do it when you’re over 60 unless you’re very, very wealthy.