Q: You’ve said that everyone is entitled to a “zone of erotic autonomy.” I was wondering if you thought that “zone” extends to sending thousands of dollars to a “FinDom.” I’m a 33-year-old straight woman and I love my husband and we have a great (or so I thought) sex life. He’s very dominant and controlling in bed and I’m very submissive and I thought we were well-matched sexually. So it was a shock for more than one reason when I stumbled over evidence that he’s been sending money to a female sex worker who calls herself a FinDom. This has been going on for nearly three years! It seems clear from their messages (I have read them all) that they’ve never met in person (she clearly states that she never meets in person with her subs) but she sends him degrading personalized videos after he sends her money roughly once every other month. The amounts are small but they add up. We are more than comfortable so the issue isn’t the money. And while my husband has never complained about what I spend on a personal trainer or my hair or body treatments (admittedly a lot), this is obviously different because he’s masturbating to these videos. I don’t really want to degrade him and I obviously couldn’t dominate him financially as our finances are shared. My husband says he doesn’t want to be degraded by me but he was nevertheless willing to pay a complete stranger to heap insults on him?!? I don’t understand. I thought I knew who he was erotically. I’m confused and don’t know what to do. —Feeling Insecure Necessarily, Doubts About Marriage Now
If you don’t want to degrade your husband—if you or if he or if you both prefer your roles to be fixed (which is common among kinky switches)—and your husband is willing to keep this connection 1. online only, 2. below an agreed to amount, and 3. to himself (if you don’t want to hear about it) or shared (if you do), I think you should allow your husband to have an outlet. Again, you can spare the money and your husband hasn’t done anything stupid—he hasn’t given this woman access to your savings accounts or written her into his will. He’s paying this woman for a little dominant time and attention every now and then. And while what your husband did (basically purchased some interactive porn) does feel cheating-adjacent . . . I gotta ask . . . have you ever hired a personal trainer just because he was hot? Have you ever chosen a hairdresser because you liked to look at him? Have you ever gone out of your way to get body treatments from a VGL male masseuse? And then thought about one of those guys—or all three of them—while you were masturbating or having sex with your husband? If you can identify any small zones of erotic autonomy that you’ve carved out for yourself, FINDAMN, allowing your husband to continue enjoying the small zone of erotic autonomy he’s carved out for himself might come a little easier.
