It Takes Two To Make It Outta Sight

I’m writing this on a problem that my friend is facing. I’m changing her name and the location so that the secrecy is maintained. My friend has been married for the last 10 years and she has two young children. She is now seeking a divorce because her hubby is not interested in her and has another woman. Bu this is the very peculiar thing: my friend’s hubby has developed an interest in sexual entry through the anus because of his addiction to pornography. He and my friend have not had sex in 4 years because of this. He says he does not enjoy biological courting. They tried having sex in this way twice but failed because the pain suffered by my friend was unbearable. Why has his desire changed to unnatural sex after so many years of a normal marriage? Is this something he learned from the Internet websites? Is this because the other woman accommodates him this way? He refuses to leave the other woman, saying that she is the suitable partner and not his legally wedded wife. Is it possible that he have normal sex with medical treatment? He only gets full satisfaction from this anus sex, not even when my friend tried doing oral. There are fights and quarrels every day. They are finally getting a divorce in order to protect the children from their fighting. Will you please help her with some suggestions?
–Friend’s Problem-Solver

Your “friend” is having this problem? Girl, please. Let’s cut the crap and acknowledge that you’re writing about yourself and so that we can move on. Now, you’ve got two problems here: one, that your husband is apparently so hung up on anal sex that he can’t get his rocks off any other way; two, that he’s having an affair and that you two don’t want to stay married. Those two issues may be related, but they’re not the same thing. If your husband is having an affair with someone else and it’s clear that neither of you want to remain married, then obviously getting a divorce is the best course of action to take. As you yourself pointed out, there’s no purpose to exposing your children to all that anger and resentment, and provided you can make the divorce proceedings as amicable as possible, then I say go for it.

But there’s this other issue of anal sex that you’ve brought up that I want to address in more detail, because it’s related to queer rights and discrimination against gay and lesbian people, in its own weird way. Now, I have no idea whether your husband developed his insatiable taste for butt love by watching porn, nor do I particularly care. And granted, he definitely sounds like a jerk if he wasn’t able to take his time, go carefully, and make it pleasurable and painless for you during the two times you tried it. Failing grade for him. However, there is nothing unnatural about anal sex and nothing particularly normal about vaginal sex, either. One of the major arguments in favor of keeping Section 377 as it stands is that anal sex (or any form of non-procreative sex) is “against the order of nature”, and this reasoning has been used to harass and oppress gay, lesbian, and transgender people since the law was enacted since anal sex is a act that has been commonly (and wrongly) associate exclusively with them. So it becomes a vicious, self-justifying cycle: anal sex is bad because it’s what gay people do, and gay people are unnatural because they have anal sex.

But clearly this is not a sexual desire that is restricted to queer people: your husband wants to have anal sex with women. (As far as you know—he might be getting it on with men as well.) Thinking about any sexual act in terms of normal or unnatural is really discriminatory because it closes off the possibility of experiencing and exploring pleasure to all people, and justifies the specific targeting of marginalized communities in the bargain. And that’s, well, crappy. (Yes, pun intended.) There’s no such thing as an unnatural sex act, only an unpleasurable or non-consensual one—and anal sex (like any other sex act) can be intensely pleasurable for both partners. If you can get around your prejudice and your husband can stop being a fool, you might be able to work your way having one last between-the-sheets blowout before you sign the divorce papers. But let me tell you one thing: both of you (or whoever your next partner is) need to make the effort, both to set and respect boundaries and also to explore each others’ sexual desires. Love’s a two-way street, baby.

Charming The Ladies

I am a 48-year-old male I am single, heterosexual, healthy, and charming. I believe marriage and procreation are a burden for the individual as well as for the environment, so I have decided not to marry, but I don’t want to abstain from sexual activities. I would like to ask you some questions regarding moral complications while having consensual sex with female partners. Is there any law stopping sexual activity of singles? Are there any laws supporting a third party or police officer who interferes with or harasses the two people while engaged in consensual sex?
–Mr. Charm

Well, Mr. Charm, what you are asking about are legal, not moral, complications. To answer your question, there are no laws on the books that criminalize consensual sex between a man and woman if both people are unmarried. However, section 497 of the Indian Penal Code does criminalize adultery, defined as “sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man…the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.” Holy jail term, Batman! With regards to the police or other “third parties” interfering with you and your lady friend getting it on, it’s been known to happen—there are no direct laws, but it’s not so uncommon for parents who don’t like the relationship to claim that one member of the couple kidnapped or raped the other in order to get the police involved. Those kinds of shenanigans definitely count as harassment and a perversion of the law, if you ask me.

Frankly, the whole idea of even having laws on the books that can legislate citizens’ sex lives is troubling. (Section 377, anyone?) Provided the sex that’s happening is between consensual adults, what happens between the sheets, or in a field, or while wearing clown suits, is really nobody else’s business. (Incidentally, don’t go around telling the women you want to pick up that you’re charming. If you can’t show without telling, it’s probably not true.)