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.

@LifeandJoy If you think all gay men simply want cosy sex in a hotel room or a home, you are mistaken. If you knew - really knew- lots of gay men you would know that they do take chances - it's part of the thrill- and they do have sex in public. This might be because they keep their sexuality hidden and have no other opportunities. Hampstead Heath and similar spaces are full of gay men who, by your reckoning, ought to be cosying up somewhere more suitable.

I have not condoned cottaging, per se. I have said that when you reach my age, you've seen and heard it all before.

I have also said that this article was written to shock and elicit a response. There may have been many edits - changing what the writer sent- by the Guardian staff, to what you now read. This would be to give it an angle. I'ts intended to be provocative.

My posts here are not so much about the content of the article, but about posters who seem to think they can take the high moral ground and know best as to how people should live their lives.

Protecting minors is one thing and I'm all for that.
Passing judgement on a marriage when you know nothing about the other side, other than the writer's explanation, is contemptible and arrogant.

i don’t see the wife as a victim actually. It’s not as if she’s just found out - she’s lived in a sexless marriage for 27 years now, even if she doesn’t know what her husband is doing (and frankly I can’t understand why anyone would want to put the details of their sexual exploits in the national press) she knows it’s been a sexless marriage and she has chosen to stay.

As for people accusing those who have objections to what this man is doing homophobic, I would have issue with it regardless of whether they were male, female or a heterosexual couple. Sex in a public place like that is just unnecessary and anyone who goes into a public toilet or the local beach to do so is pretty vile. Do what you want within a consenting relationship, just don’t do it publicly.

How do any of you know what’s normal in the gay community? Given how judgemental you are, do you really think your gay friends would tell you if they enjoyed cottaging? If you have gay sons, they’re not going to confide in you, are they?

I have not ever suggested "all" gay men want cosy sex. I'm not interested per secon what type of sex gay men want. All I'm saying is having sex in public toilets, betraying your wife, and boasting about it or making light of it is unacceptable.

You want to make this about cosy sex, what proportion of gay men do or don't do this, homophobia, etc? Go ahead but that's not the point of the thread based on the OP's post. You think the behaviour of men like the husband in the letter is okay? I don't. I don't care if 20 million gay men do this. I still don't think it is acceptable for the same reasons I stated several times before.

My partner and I escort and to be honest, cottaging to me seems like a big group of the "I'm 100% straight but I'm here to suck your cock" typea we and others we know ignore on account of them being vile and having dangerous suppressed issues.

He sounds disgusting. I hope shes getting he brains hammered out by some sex God.

It's nothing to do with the type of sex. Plenty of normal people like dirty sex with strangers. But not as part of a double life behind their wife's back.

@JinglingHellsBells telling people they don't "really know" gay men and one (your) opinion supercedes all others is arrogant, prejudiced and frankly ridiculous. Cottaging may be the norm for some closet homosexuals, but its certainly not for anyone I know who is out (and not all gays live near Hampstead Heath ffs). This includes close family members and networks of friends and former colleagues. You can't tell a whole bunch of posters whose experience is vastly different to yours that you know better. It just sounds like you are desperate for a stereotype to be true, no matter what the evidence to the contrary.

And given that the wife has no voice in the article, and the writer doesn't mention her feelings or point of view once, we can only assume she's in the dark and he's a selfish knob jockey. Because that's all the evidence there is. He had the chance to say if she was complicit in this arrangement and make it sound more equal - but he doesn't. He is that arrogant and selfish.

It's nothing to do with the fact that he is fucking men as opposed to women. It's the fact that he is deceiving his wife (I assume, unless she knows), seems not to care two shits about her, and is so proud of these things that he has written about them in a national newspaper. What a fucking catch!

I doubt this guy thinks he's gay. There are actually a lot of men out there who identify as MSM - men who have sex with men - but they don't consider themselves gay as they don't relate to gay culture. I don't get it either but that's what they've told me!

LOL at the hypocrites here.

Turn down the bed. Amazing. Careless whisper and all that. Best voice ever, such a lovely man.

Then judge people on their life choices.

Where gay men have sex is nothing to do with you.
Except it is when they're doing it in a public place, which is actually an indecency offence!!

These are PUBLIC toilets for customers of all ages, including children ffs!

Be gay all you want but fucking strangers straight after going for a piss in filthy toilet cubicles is grim, deviant behaviour.
Not to mention one of which they'd be arrested if caught.

It's astonishing why people like you think gay men should be above the law and shouldn't have to conform to civilised society.

It's not impossible that the letter was rewritten to remove any mention of the wife knowing and not minding, because then more saddos could get all outraged by it. But such situations really do only arise because too many people are obsessed with 'normal' sexuality and insisting that everyone else a) accept their definition of normality and b) obey it.
And the poster who suggested this man's behaviour is 'rapey' - WTF? There is nothing in that letter about him performing sex acts on anyone who is unwilling.

But why are you defending this man, SGB?

SGB is seemingly out to be the dissenting voice tonight.
She’s on another thread telling a woman who’s DH is behaving like a selfish adolescent ‘she probably wasn’t invited and isn’t accepting him telling her the marriage is over’ very pissy attitude, not sure of the motivation. In this thread the point loads of us are trying to make are:
The article makes him sound like an arrogant cunt (we unfortunately can’t discuss what might or might not be edits because we only know what’s been shown)
And having sex in public places is unacceptable and illegal. Whist a lot of public sex may take place, a lot of it is in places where your everyday person/kid doesn’t frequent at the times the sex takes place (the idea of wanking off beer bellied strangers in a car park doesn’t float my boat, but if it does you, have at it - when I don’t have to watch, or my kids.
But fucking in a public toilet, at any old time is just bloody selfish. This isn’t to do with gay, straight, it’s to do with the apparent disdain he holds and treats his wife with, and that he chooses to do his thing where anyone can see.
Don’t be bloody obtuse!

SGB is famously kink-positive, pro-BDSM etc. She's defending her own lifestyle.

And they wonder why women want same-sex public toilets

Worth repeating.

On the other thread, the OP's H is living in a flat that is not the marital home, clearly not pleased that she is visiting. While he isn't behaving well, it's worth asking if she was actually invited rather than suggesting that he's 100% the one in the wrong.

And I am pro free choice. The fetishization of 'normal' sex ie longterm heterosexual monogamy, and the history of punishing anyone who doesn't want to engage in it, is exactly the reason why set-ups like the one described in the OP happen. If that man, and others like him, hadn't been taught that being gay was shameful and they should get married and ignore their desires, he wouldn't be in the position he is now - and his wife, if she would perhaps have preferred a husband who wanted sex with her, would have been at liberty to find one.

Also, for the pearl-clutchers, gay men who go in for cottaging are generally more careful than you seem to think when it comes to making sure there's no one else around, because they would prefer not to get their heads kicked in by homophobic straight men, so anyone who actually catches a couple of men in a loo is unlucky on the level of someone walking in on a flatmate shagging a partner when said flatmate thought you weren't due back for a couple of hours.

@Littleandoften You can't tell a whole bunch of posters whose experience is vastly different to yours that you know better

And neither can you though you're making a good job of it!

You are exaggerating what I said to suit your agenda. I said cottaging is something gay men do. Not all gay men. Not men who have come out, generally. But some gay men. And the man in the feature has not come out which is why he has to resort to this like men did in the 1950s.

As for the pearl clutches, do you honestly think that gay men are going to risk being caught in toilets? @Lifeandjoy As another poster pointed out, they are careful because they don't want to be attacked by straight men. My DH has never in his entire 60 years of life seen or heard men cottaging in toilets. I don't know a man who has. They will choose little-used toilets and choose their times. The likelihood of a child stumbling into this is tiny- they are more likely to see and hear their parents having sex and wondering what that was all about!

As a couple of posters have said, what is so wrong about this letter is that the man cannot- because of his background and societal norms then- come out. He has buried his feelings and is forced to live like this.

Yes, he is possibly being negligent of his wife's feelings but it is utterly wrong to take her side because none of us know what is going on there. My guess is she knows and accepts it and lives her own life.

I know of many long-term sexless marriages (friends and friends of friends) which would equally shock some people. I know of marriages where women (and men) turn a blind eye to infidelity. I know of marriages which did end eventually, where the man came out but only after being married a long time and fathering several children.

On the surface this marriage is a sham and deceitful, but it's so obviously written to provoke ( you need to understand how the media works) that it's also patently clear there will be another side, and we don't know what that is. So stop assuming his wife is ignorant. She may be very content and that's my guess.

For a start, your post talks about gay men you know who behave in a certain way and who have come out. It's quite clear that the man who wrote the letter has not come out. I also did NOT say that ALL gay mHope you can spot the irony.en go cottaging.

I hope she’s having fun.

Can’t wait for this to start happening in gender neutral toilets and changing rooms. 🙄

The thing this thread illustrates for me is what a big gap there is between generations. Those of us with six decades under our belts, not only remember different times so we see this in context, but have lost our idealism about relationships.

Most of the women posting here are viewing the situation through the lens of a life stage where marriage is a romantic, monogamous partnership and all gay men are out and proud. There’s nothing wrong with that - and how could it be any different? You can only draw on your own experience.

Unfortunately there’s no recognition that a longstanding marriage is a completely different ball game to one in its early stages or that while gay men in their 60s were growing up, not only was society appalled by homosexuality but it was actually illegal. Times change but people don’t.

Alsohuman Gay men of today who are 60 plus were experiencing their youth in the 80s! Yes there was still a lot of homophobia but it cannot be compared to pre 1970.

No, gay men in their 60s were in their 30s in the 80s. Maybe you should brush up your maths. A man born in 1953 was 14 when homosexuality became legal and society continued to discriminate against and disapprove of it for a very long time after that.

As for the pearl clutches, do you honestly think that gay men are going to risk being caught in toilets?

Speaking for the man in the OP (who, as I've said, probably doesn't consider himself gay), yes he is risking being caught. A London railway station toilet at peak hour is hardly the most anonymous of bogs!