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.

we're all supposed to be ashamed of pearl clutching for thinking it's vile

It's the male sense of entitlement (for those kind of men) to whatever sex life they want too. Don't like it? You're a vanilla nag/prude/useless wife/feminazi etc.

He's clearly gay or bisexual. I would imagine he's gay though.
There's no excuse in this day and age to stay with a woman when you're gay (or stay with a man if you're female).
I don't care what generation they grew up in, it's selfish and despicable to get another person involved in your lies.

He's not helping homophobia here is he. Ffs. I've spent the afternoon reading about executions and the crimes prisoners were executed for. "Unnatural acts" such as sodomy/buggery featured a few times. Homosexual acts were viewed as disgusting and obscene along with unnatural and we've come a long way in trying to eradicate that view. We still have a long way to go but we no longer imprison and execute men for being gay. Men like this opening boasting about cottaging are not helping those who have yet to accept homosexuality as normal move on from their Victorian views. It portrays homosexuality as seedy, without morals or decency, conducted in public conveniences, furtive, nasty, and generally repulsive. I view cottaging as all these things but some will tar all homosexuals with the same depraved brush.

I don't get all the pearl clutching.

The guy is gay, The wife is happy with it.

What's the problem?

It's a sign of our times when normal sexual relationships are described as vanilla. So wives must start swinging from chandeliers and doing all sorts of acrobatics to become relevant sexual brings on their marriages.

The steady erosion of perfectly normal life. Why should such things like cottaging become so mainstream that a man feels quite happy to boast about it (albeit anonymously) basking in the fact that he is betraying his wife?

His wife does not deserve this abuse and society can do without normalising this rubbish behaviour. If he is gay, he should be upfront with his wife and go off to lead a decent life. Not this seedy nonsense where young kids can be subjected to this.

That's actually nasty! 🤮

Fairenuff, maybe what we need more of is pearl clutching. I don't mind clutching my pearls at discretion, abusing someone because they engage in normal aka vanilla sex, boasting about it in a national newspaper, etc. Why shouldn't I clutch my pearls. Why should I accept this behaviour as okay and not a big deal?

I really don't understand the comments here about him being 'vile'. (Too many to reply to each poster saying this.)

Why is he vile? For being honest? For writing it for the Graundian?

It's patently clear that they each do their own thing (him and his wife.)
Living separate lives under the same roof.

My maths makes him around 66. ( 27+10- +29) Bit older than me, but have friends near that age.

There are many couples who weather the storms of marriage and as they age decide to stay put.

I guess his wife has known for decades that he was gay, or she is asexual or not interested in sex (and knew before they got married that he was gay) or she has lovers and stays with him for any number of reasons.

I don't feel sorry for her at all because presumably she could leave him.

Something makes her stay- money, companionship, habit, 'appearances', maybe children in the past.

As for him, he's doing what gay men have always done- using public lavs to pick up other gay men (married).

All I would say is it's shame he can't tell his wife outright but she will know, I'm sure.

*beings in their marriages

“..social status attached to being married”

Is this actually a thing??

@Lifeandjoy- what do you mean by such things becoming 'mainstream'?

I think I was aware from being a teen that men went 'cottaging' - so that's 50 years ago.

What are you talking about? 'Young kids subjected to this'? what is your 'this'?

Have you led a sheltered life? What he does IS mainstream for gay men.

It's a feature in a broadsheet. And don't forget that the editors may well have asked him to write it in a particular way or they have edited it to include words like 'vanilla'.

Many things have been going on for decades but it does not mean they should become mainstream or socially acceptable. I know many, many gay people who do not agree that this is mainstream for them.

The this that young people are exposed to is going into public toilets where men are more are more open about cottaging because it's more and more mainstream and acceptable.

As for the comment about the wife staying because of money. Very sexist assumption.

Its doing his wife a disservice to assume she has passively sat back for 30 years, and never considered what is going on.

I have gay friends who say married "heterosexual" men make up most of their casual encounters.

When my gay exh was outed he told me this too.

@MilesJuppIsMyBitch No I'm not blaming her at all.

If your marriage had been celibate for decades, you'd consider whether your DH was going elsewhere.

If your DH had hundreds of extramarital liasons, the chances are you'd have noticed small things amiss (someone mentioning they'd seen him somewhere unexpected, him wandering off for short periods, evasiveness, stains , that sort of thing).

If you'd spent a decade having sex with a closeted gay man, you may have noticed small things there too.

My friend knew....married for 42 yrs and she knew...Lets call her angela ..angela knew trevor from school.They had 3 children grown and she turned a blind eye to the fact of what trevor was doing.Trevor was discreet and used to go off on his wanderings she called it.She meanwhile had the respectability she called it of marriage,They had the loveliest of homes,wealth,grandchildren they both adored and they were close friends.Sex between them had been off the table for years.She was happy.They didt argue and both of them got what they wanted from the charade of their marriage,They holidayed together and seperately and appeared to both have a good life.Neither wanted to break up with each other.It worked for them both,Sadly when trevor died she admitted she had lost her best friend,and I am sure he was,Neither one of them were bad people in my book,Who are we all to judge? Things work for different people in different ways and this stuff is way more common place than most people think.They were both happy with their lot,She wouldnt have wanted life without him or him without her ...

@Lifeandjoy I can't really believe that you are writing what you are! I'm not sure what you mean by 'mainstream'? Do you mean cottaging or do you mean it's being written about in a national broadsheet? Gay men use public loos and always have. It IS mainstream. Maybe you are naive.

I think they will be mindful of young boys who may be in there.
There will be certain public loos where these men hang out- it's not going to be any public loo where 9 yr old boys are trotting in and out all day.

My comment about his wife possibly staying for the money was ONE reason out of many. It is completely valid- a woman of 64 is going to think long and hard about money just as MAN would too if it was applicable- it's too late to go back into work isn't it? She will be of the generation when on balance, men earned more and women stayed at home.

I don’t give a shiny shit if men hanging around public toilets looking for any old dick to suck is ‘mainstream’ or acceptable in certain strands of gay culture. It’s fucking horrible.

Cottaging goes back to long before the legalisation of homosexuality. It’s been “mainstream” for about a century.

@JinglingHellsBells I'm not sure we need the wife's side of the story, given the guy freely admits to shagging strange men in public toilets. That's usually a trait most women wouldn't want in their husbands.

It’s also a trait a lot of women in their 60s and married for 40 years wouldn’t give a fuck about. Like Sally’s friend, Angela.

@DorothyParkersCat :
A single female colleague is into BDSM, very open about it with her closer friends. She 'dates' both via specialist websites and going to BDSM group parties. She's looking for a long term relationship

She says her struggle is to find single men. Listening to her most of the men on these sites are married, open about it and are saying similar to that article but rather than looking for gay sex with strangers are a looking for a submissive female or a dominant female to have some side fun with. Another common theme she says is the line of I love my wife but shes so vanilla that I don' t want her to know what I really want in bed as I know she'd be disgusted and leave me

This is absolutely my experience. Mainly married men, bored of their "vanilla" wives. It's depressing.

'Why shouldn't I clutch my pearls. Why should I accept this behaviour as okay and not a big deal?'

Because the wife accepts it so it's not really any of your business?

My male gay friend said there are many straight married men looking for sex with men on the many internet / app hook up sites he used. I forget what he said, when I asked how he knew they were straight and married. He was very sure though.

I think with my friend she separated sex from her marriage and friendship with her husband,She would admit that she respected the man.He was a wonderful father,grandfather and soul mate to her.She recognised in her mind the act of sex was a more err not sure how to phrase it but it was more of a release thing,kind of an animalistic act that was just something he needed,She didnt need it or desire it.She saw an act not a form of making love,she said the two things were very different.There was no intimacy like I associate with making love,,it was a physical release to her,I kind of understand that to a point.She was able to separate her life,and her values,She had a wonderful ,warm,caring relationship with her husband as did he with herSex the lack of it with them or the sex he had with others was simply a need he filled and a need to be filled,They didnt have that need with each other and she was never going to give up all the other wonderful things they shared together just for an itch to be scratched as she put it .....I explained non of that well but I hope you get the drift of what I am trying to say,,,