I Want My Husband to Have Sex With Men

A wife ponders the possibilities of opening her marriage

My husband wants to have more sex than I do. And honestly, I think I want a lot of sex! As an older woman, I have one friend who has given up sex entirely and another who saves it for the rarest of special occasions, whereas sometimes I have sex for days on end, by which I mean three days in a row. :p

Still, there comes a point (usually around the fourth day), when I’d rather relax with a book with a cup of coffee than tangle in the sheets. But my husband never gets to that place.

I don’t want to perpetuate any stereotypes here, but his sex drive is stronger than mine, and there’s no reason to think that’s ever going to change. We’ve been married for decades, a big portion of which he’s spent complaining that he isn’t getting enough sex, which lands on me.

All I’m doing is sitting on the couch peacefully with a book and a coffee, and somehow I’m in the wrong? That’s unfair! And it’s one of the reasons I want him to have sex with men. Because honestly, one sex partner isn’t enough to satisfy him. He needs two.

Why not other women?

Why men? Because I don’t trust women. I love women. Don’t get me wrong. But I don’t want them sleeping with my husband.

I’m not sure why men don’t threaten me in the same way. Maybe it’s because men are such horn dogs that they don’t care about the specific person they’re having sex with all that much. (See disclaimer below.) They just want to stick their you-know-what into who-knows-where and carry on.

But if a woman has sex with my husband, my guess is she’d like him to become her husband, or boyfriend, or secret Santa, or something that involves her taking him away from me. And I don’t want to lose him. I just want to open him up. And I want us to stop having the same fight we’ve been having for decades.

Disclaimer: I should say here that all people are individuals, and vast generalizations like I employ in this story don’t apply to everyone. But you knew that already.

More people are alternative than you think

I first got the idea when woman I met at a party told me that her ex-husband was hooking up with men. He’d rather hook up with women (he says), but he can’t find any. Same goes for the men he’s hooking up with. Hmm…

Since then I’ve read a little about situational homosexuality, which basically means what I said earlier, that men are indiscriminate horn dogs. (See disclaimer above.) But is that a flaw, or a feature? It sounds to me like an evolutionary advantage to be able to have sex with whoever is available. It also sounds spiritually advanced. As Lao Tzu says, “he who knows he has enough is truly rich.”

Or as Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young say, “If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with.”

The idea solidified when someone else told me that her sister was in a romantic “triad” with two apparently homosexual men. I’d seen a “thruple” portrayed on House of Cards, but it seemed a silly media invention as portrayed there. But here was a real-life example related to someone I know. It’s happening.

I’ve also read that almost half of all Americans of marriageable age (18 and older) are not married. Is it possible more people are trying alternative sexual arrangements than we think? Sure it is. But does that even matter? If I want to try this and my husband is game, shouldn’t we try it, regardless of whether or not it’s a trend?

What about sexual orientation?

As far as I’m concerned, strict sexual orientations are false gender identities imposed by society. Sexuality is a continuum. Sure it’s possible to be on the extreme hetero- or homosexual end of the long and labyrinthian Line of Desire, but most people fall somewhere in the middle.

Consider this: have you ever noticed that men are obsessed with penises?

• How many penises have you seen graffitied on freeway overpasses, or sidewalks, or posters, or walls (vs. how many vulvas)?
• How many drawn on school desks or in the margins of books?
• How many dick pics have you been sent on your phone? (This may only be relevant to younger women, but even as an older one, I’ve gotten one.)
• How many crimes involve men exposing themselves?

The point is, men love their penises. In researching this article, I came across a story about an annual Japanese Festival celebrating the male organ, complete with penis-shaped popsicles and giant penis floats, and another about a eye-tracking study that shows that when men look at photos of people, their eyes go to men’s crotches.

Why do you think that is?

My theory is men would love to behave as the pansexual horn dogs they are, putting their thing into everyone else’s business, but society uses homophobia to enforce gender “norms” and prevent them from doing that. Why? To prop up the status quo.

Smash the patriarchy!

Homophobia and gender policing are tools of the patriarchy, useful in keeping women and minority groups in their subservient places. If men were coupling with whomever would have them (willy nilly!), it would be harder to maintain the violent and hateful hierarchy which is killing the planet and every living thing on it — including white men, the people who are “benefiting” from the status quo by being given money and power while being forced into rigid gender boxes full of hate and violence.

But trading sex and love for money and power is not a good bargain, gentlemen! It’s a deal with the devil. It’s soul destructive. And it’s high time to break those gender boxes down.

I read a story recently that suggested trans people are undertaking a heroic journey to save civilization from the gender tyranny that oppresses us all. By extension, so is anyone enacting a non-standard gender expression or sexual orientation. Their efforts are paving the way for a post-patriarchal world. So my plan for my husband to have sex with other men could not only benefit my husband, myself, and our long-standing marriage, but all of humankind.

Sexism spoils heteronormative relationships

Intrinsic sexism is another problem in our long-standing relationship that could be shaken up by a radical shift in our sexual practices. When we go places together, he wants to lead the way, drive the car, explain how things work, express his learned opinion. And often, what he has to say is interesting. Still, it’s debilitating to always play the role of audience. I also want to lead sometimes. But he isn’t conditioned to follow anyone of lower status, which includes all women.

Have you ever heard a woman complain that since the pandemic (or retirement) she finds home life “a challenge?” I have. Many times. Wives are complaining about spending more time with husbands because of the ubiquitous sexist power imbalance.

It’s not that husbands are imposing their will forcefully, like tyrants. It’s that wives are submitting unequivocally, like the “feminine” wimps they were brought up to be. Women play a big part in propping up the dysfunctional status quo. In relationship with my husband, it’s hard for me to disagree or assert my preference. I don’t know if that’s my natural personality, or my gender conditioning. But when I do assert myself, it creates a problem. So I usually go along to get along, which stunts our growth and harms us both.

I remember a fight we had many years ago, when hubby said he wanted to spend all his time with me, so why didn’t I want to spend all my time with him?

“You like to spend time with me because I’m not always trying to supervise you!” I shouted.

And later, when he claimed I’d never find a husband who wanted a wife who was seldom home, I told him I didn’t want another husband. “I’ve had enough supervision!!!”

After that, it became a running joke between us. When he enters a room I’m in, he says he’s come to supervise me, and we laugh. He’s trying. I’m trying. But we’re getting nowhere. We need to take a bold action to break open the rigid, unsatisfying, and gender-constricted pattern of our relationship.

What about homophobia?

When I ran this story by a gay friend to ask if it was offensive, he said it wasn’t. But he also said that some men find the idea of coupling with other men physically repulsive, just as some gay men find the idea of coupling with women repulsive. Yet I think that kind of generalized repulsion isn’t natural, but a socially-imposed reaction.

Do you remember the movie American Beauty? One apparently straight man comes on to another. The other respectfully declines. The first man later kills the second. That story was fiction, but I’ve seen something similar play out in real life more than once. The most horrific example was when man met two gay guys — a couple I knew — in their place of business, and had several friendly interactions with them. Later, he entered their home and killed them, because he hated gays so much, or so he told the authorities. Yet once he was sent to prison, he became gay himself.

It’s an old story, capsulized in Shakespeare’s famous line “methinks thou doth protest too much.”

How much of homophobia is actually repression — men not wanting to admit they’re attracted to dicks? How much is performative, to impress their buddies and maintain their status in the hetero hierarchy? What is hate, after all, besides a passionate connection, the mirror reflection of love? I’ve heard it said that the opposite of love isn’t hate, but indifference. Sounds right to me.

But all this philosophizing doesn’t make homophobia any less dangerous. It’s just a way of examining its origins. Where does it come from? How is it fostered? My theory, again, is that it’s a prop for the patriarchy. As to whether my husband is held in its delusional grip, I’m pretty sure he’s not. In fact, I have reason to think he’s bi-curious. I guess we’re about to find out.

Owning my part of the problem

I like to believe that our relationship problems are all my husband’s fault: he wants more sex than I do, and he blames me for it, while I’m just an innocent bystander, doing my thing. But what if my disinterest in sex is a power play? It seems possible that while giving up power on the surface of our relationship, I gain it below ground by withholding something he wants. I don’t think I’m doing that. It certainly isn’t conscious. But I can’t deny that my sex drive is capricious, responding more to circumstance than purely physical cues.

There’s an app for that!

One thing that would have been an obstacle in the past is that my husband is shy, making it almost impossible for him to meet new friends, let alone new people to have sex with.

But now there are apps that make hooking up easy, particularly for people who are socially awkward. Now anyone can use an app to set up a meeting with a stranger, no song and dance required. And if these apps are opening up sexual possibilities, breaking down gender stereotypes, and connecting people who otherwise would have remained isolated, then maybe they are saving human civilization, too.

If I put it that way, do you think my husband would want to try it? Should I really ask him? It seems outlandish, but also genius.

What do you think?

What happened next? Read Chronicle of an Open Marriage #2. Find all of my stories about opening our marriage on the list below, or about sex in general on this one. Get an email whenever I publish. Let’s do this thing!