This is the second installment of a recent series for this column, answering readers’ thorniest questions about sex and love as part of a special magazine issue on relationships.
I am an older man who still desires sex as well as intimacy. Yet, I can no longer get an erection. I joke that my soundtrack used to be ‘‘A Hard Day’s Night’’ and is now the Mister Softee ice-cream truck’s tune. Erectile-dysfunction meds don’t work for me, but I have other ways of pleasuring my partner without intercourse. When I am initiating an interaction that I hope will lead to sex, do I need to tell that it will not include a hard-on, or do I let it be discovered in the natural course of things? I don’t want to reduce the chance of a successful seduction. Besides being a disappointment, I don’t want to be shamed afterward or the object of ridicule. Word gets around. — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
When it comes to intimate disclosure, the simplest moral strategy will serve you well: Consider what you’d wish to know if the roles were reversed. ‘‘Initiating an interaction’’ could mean a lot of things. The right moment isn’t at ‘‘Let’s have drinks next week,’’ but neither is it at the point when you and your partner are making your way to bed (and when your failure to stand at attention might wrongly suggest that you’re not really into it). Rather, it’s when intimacy is in the offing but before any specific expectations have been established. What you’re coming forward with isn’t an apology but an invitation to a different menu of pleasure. Some potential partners may prefer the traditional ‘‘meat and two veg’’ (as British pubs still advertise); others will appreciate more imaginative, and perhaps sweeter, fare. As that Mister Softee tune reminds us, it can be rewarding to think beyond the cone. If word does spread about your particular situation, you might find it trails favorable reviews — less about what’s missing and more about what was supplied instead.
Should My Husband Make Amends for Being a Sugar Daddy?
My husband of many years revealed to me that he has had numerous extramarital affairs. He met these partners on a dating website that promotes ‘‘sugar daddy/sugar baby’’ relationships between attractive women and successful men. Sometimes this dynamic involves lavish dating, trips and gifts, and in other instances it simply involves pay-per-meet arrangements, which is, essentially, paying for sex without the dating aspect.
I maintain that women with healthy self-esteem generally do not have sex for money, and that most, if not all, of these women are very broken people who may be sexual-assault survivors, alcoholics, drug addicts or living in dire financial straits. In my opinion, any man who would engage these women’s services is clearly exploiting them.
To make amends, I feel that my (soon to be ex-) husband needs to volunteer at a sexual-assault crisis center or hotline, directly contact at least the last person he met with to hear her story and determine a way to help or get involved in an organization that assists sex workers in leaving the industry. He is open to financially donating to a worthy cause surrounding these issues but not to getting directly involved, as I have suggested. I think true amends need to be made by doing more than writing a large check. What are your thoughts surrounding sufficient amends? — Name Withheld
From the Ethicist:
You’re right to be indignant about what your husband has done with these other women, because it was disrespectful to you and your relationship. What’s not so evident is that he was, as you think, victimizing them, and that you know how best he should make amends.
You see women who have sex for money — and we’ll stipulate that some or all of your husband’s partners can be so described — as ‘‘very broken people.’’ But we now have a good deal of sociological and ethnographic research about such people, not to mention memoirs and other first-person accounts. Yes, there are horror stories, but the picture that emerges is far from your dark imaginings. For a great many women who choose sex work, your compassion will read as condescension.
Nor are untutored intuitions sufficient when it comes to social interventions. You refer to organizations aimed at getting women out of the business. Are you sure that’s the best approach? If you’re concerned for their welfare, you might instead join Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the A.C.L.U. in their advocacy for the decriminalization of sex work; these and other human rights organizations present evidence that doing so reduces women’s risk of violence or exploitation from clients or police.
Spending time at a sexual-assault crisis center would no doubt be a worthwhile thing for anyone to do, including you. A past of patronizing sex workers, though, neither qualifies nor obligates someone to volunteer. I don’t doubt your social conscience, but it would be entirely understandable at this point if your driving interest were more in punishment than in penance. Either way, because you’re ending your relationship with your husband, you’ve given up a spousal role in helping him manage his moral obligations. What you owe yourself is to step back — and move forward.