People have wrestled with the ethics of erotic life since antiquity. Though the tension between desire and conscience is as old as humanity, there’s nothing dated about the way people are trying to navigate the complex landscape of connection. With Valentine’s Day looming, I invited readers to submit sex-related questions. Some of the letters I got made me smile; some broke my heart. All of them reminded me of what’s been apparent since Plato’s day: Questions about sex are always questions about being human.
So, this week, we have a special series from The Ethicist, answering readers’ thorniest questions about sex and love as part of a Magazine issue about relationships. Here’s the first set of questions. Look out for more at nytimes.com/magazine or sign up to my newsletter here.
I am a healthy, physically fit woman in my late 50s, married for more than two decades. My marriage remains fun, engaging, compassionate and passionate; we still have a very active sex life. Our children are grown and thriving. While my husband has been unfaithful a few times over the years (many years ago now), I chose forgiveness and relationship work. I have, however, developed a menopausal sex drive that has increased rather than withered — and a rather deep desire to experience sex with one other man before I die or get too old.
This man would have to be someone I don’t know and will never see again. I have researched a plan as follows: 1) Fly to a major coastal city; 2) Hire an escort from a reputable service and have sex with him in a nice hotel; 3) Fly home and get an S.T.I. screen (although I’d obviously have practiced safe sex). I have never been unfaithful to my husband. In fact, I had sex with only two other men before I met him. This desire is definitely not the result of latent hostility for his long-ago indiscretions (I’ve thought it through for several years now), and, according to my husband, I do have two opportunities to even the score with impunity. Nevertheless, I don’t want him to know because I don’t want to hurt him, and it would. I travel frequently, so this trip wouldn’t raise an eyebrow. To be clear, I’m not interested in an open marriage, polyamory or anything along those lines, nor would I use a dating or ‘‘hookup’’ app. Escorts from services whose prices are in the $1,500 range are well vetted, and I don’t feel I’d be sexually exploiting a 35-year-old, willing, well-paid man. What do you think? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
I won’t quibble with your statements of fact or your careful plans. Participants in this slightly niche trade are, to judge from the scholarly literature (not to mention first-person Reddit posts), typically doing what they’re doing for the normal reason people do jobs: They’ve concluded that they can make a decent living this way and they prefer it to other occupations for which they are qualified. There are exceptions, but coercion and exploitation don’t seem to be at the heart of the services you have in mind. Let’s stipulate, further, that you’re able to avoid contracting and sharing any S.T.I.s. from the encounter. (The right precautions would reduce the risks substantially — though, I should point out, not to zero.)
We’re still left with the questions of what you owe yourself, your husband and your marriage. There’s an implication that you’re drawn to this erotic experiment because you’ve had sex with only three men. I realize that the erotic imagination isn’t stanched by statistics, but to go by the available survey data, your three sex partners wouldn’t seem to make you an outlier.
And then — not to put too fine a point on it — the fact that your plans are well laid doesn’t mean that you’ll be. You could be imagining Leo Grande and end up with Deuce Bigalow. If the dalliance is a dud, do you give up or do you try again so you can execute the experiment correctly? On the other hand, if the tryst is transporting, will it really be one and done?
Your strongest argument is that your husband, presumably apologizing for his own infidelities, told you that he wouldn’t blame you if you strayed a couple of times yourself. But that’s not exactly consent: It isn’t the proverbial ‘‘hall pass,’’ granting permission in advance. Instead, it’s a pledge of forgiveness for a wrong.
I appreciate your wanting to protect his feelings, and sometimes people do prefer ‘‘don’t ask, don’t tell’’ situations. The trouble is that you can’t know what he’d prefer without giving him the chance to tell you. If you proceed with your off-the-books booty call, you’d be making a choice for both of you about what information he gets to have concerning his own marriage, denying him agency in the situation. It would be a betrayal of marital trust, something you’ve had painful experience with yourself. Secrets in a marriage, meanwhile, can carry emotional costs for the secret-keeper. I wonder if you could find a path to work through these feelings together, and maybe come up with other ways to add excitement to your relationship. Whatever you choose, make sure you can wake up the next morning at peace with who you are, both as a lover and as a partner.
I Don’t Care if My Lovers Climax. Should I Feel Bad About That?
I’m a woman in my 60s and sexually active with men my age. I’ve observed a sexual turning of the tables from a gender perspective. I reach satisfaction quickly and easily these days. The men I sleep with now experience what women have struggled with for decades: They often can’t reach climax during intercourse. I find this somewhat ironic because this struggle is commonplace for most women during their reproductive years — hormones rise and fall for women, and achieving climax every time we have sex was rarely the norm. Some women ‘‘faked it,’’ and some just let their partners finish with no obligation to ensure their female partner reached equal satisfaction. In my younger years, I always worked to ensure my male partner reached full satisfaction, but my partners rarely made the same effort.
Ethically speaking, I no longer feel an obligation to make sure my male partners climax. I feel no guilt in turning over and falling fast asleep, knowing they have not. Should I feel bad about that? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, as the saying goes. Yet your story raises larger questions about intimacy and mutuality. In ‘‘The Second Sex,’’ Simone de Beauvoir observed that, historically, men related to women as subjects to objects — men as the desiring agents, women as merely their vessels. Your past experiences of being denied sexual fulfillment reflect this woeful tradition.
Still, the men in your bed today aren’t the same ones who ignored your pleasure years ago. (Maybe some of them had been exquisitely considerate lovers and are now getting a rather rude awakening as you slumber.) Besides, in turning the tables now on your sexagenarian stragglers, you may be missing an opportunity for something more meaningful. Authentic sexual intimacy, Beauvoir thought, requires ‘‘carnal reciprocity,’’ where partners flow between being subjects and objects of desire. So perhaps these tables are best tossed, not turned. Score-settling can have its gratifications, no doubt, but you shouldn’t give up on a dynamic where pleasure is given and taken in fair measure — even if the search for perfect mutuality proves a wild-goose chase.
The post I’m Happily Married. I Just Want to Sleep With Another Man Before I Die. appeared first on New York Times.
