Hi Holly, an ex reached out recently, and we’ve caught up on life over the last 2 years since we split.
Lately, the conversations have turned spicy. He desperately wants me to dominate him, boss him around, edge him, and use him like a toy. We are long distance now, so it’s all fun and talk. I’ve teased with a few tastefully posed photos.
Because he is my doting little pet, I want to make sure he earns his keep. Playfully, of course, respectfully… well, maybe not respectfully. I want to demand something from him, something other than money. But with the distance my options are limited.
Any ideas? What’s something men don’t want to part with? I want to make it hard for him to give it up.
Yours, Gozer.
Dear Gozer,
I’ve thought long and hard about how to help you, dreaming up myriad methods of potential long-distance torture, from playful to truly sadistic. Finally, I concluded that I am too unfamiliar with the nature of your proclivities and personalities to give you any specific, direct advice. So instead, a parable:
All the way back in eighth grade, I spent an afternoon wandering around downtown Minneapolis with a boy I knew from the neighborhood. I suspected he had a crush, and it was this day that he decided to make it known. After a long-winded attempt to convey the depth of his affection towards me, he concluded his rant with: “I would do anything for you.”
“Anything?” I responded, wide eyed. It just sounded so dramatic and literal, while inside me was mostly ambivalence.
“Anything. I’ll prove it.”
I hadn’t much time to think about what I’d want as proof, so was forced to draw inspiration from the first thing my eyes landed on—a tree, growing from a grate in the sidewalk.
“Okay then. Eat dirt.”
I watched in shock as he stopped, knelt beside its scrawny trunk, and scraped his fingernails down beneath its roots. Right in the place where all the dog piss had likely pooled. He scratched and dug until he’d unearthed a small mound of moist, brown dust, which he popped into his mouth like a tic tac, leaving a little smear on his chin. While looking me dead in the eyes, I heard an audible gulp as he swallowed.
My mild disinterest grew into profound curiosity—a combination of excitement over my newfound power, and utter disgust. Until this moment, I had no idea how pathetic a man could truly be.
I think this was the last time I ever saw him, and that was my choice. I’d completely lost respect for him.
Take what you will from this cautionary tale. Oh, and by the way, why did y’all break up in the first place?
###
In an era of 50/50 equality, why does ‘being the man’ still feel like it requires taking 100% of the emotional risk—making the approach, planning the date, going for the kiss? Is masculinity essentially just the willingness to eat rejection for breakfast so she doesn’t have to?
I appreciate the level of vulnerability a man must endure when it comes to dating, and the pressure to “be a man”, therefore lead the way. To be thoughtful and considerate in caring for a woman must be terribly scary.
Dating itself is an inherently risky business for everyone involved no matter the gender. It requires an insane level of trust in basic human decency, which is proven time and time again to be void in a shocking number of beings. Men lie. Women lie. Tantrum throwing inner children wander masked beneath fully grown adult bodies. It’s an emotional landmine for all.
I find it interesting that you believe a man takes 100 percent of the emotional risk. Have you considered how it might feel leaving the safe confines of the four walls you inhabit to venture into the big, bad world with a total stranger who also happens to be your apex predator?
What about the labor that goes into our physical appearance? Is there not a double standard when it comes to how women dress, do our hair and makeup, shave our legs, rip the hair right out of our pussies by the root, eat or don’t eat, and perfume ourselves? And these ventures are not cheap.
Which leads me to the fact that men historically have had more opportunities to both earn and be in power—for all of history really, especially in this country. Financially, while women have clawed, scraped and climbed to get to where we are today, men have had a leg up and still do—it is men that hold the highest positions of power— so no, we are not yet equal.
50/50 equality is a nice concept, but that is simply not the way the cookie crumbles. You can carefully measure the flour, sugar and baking powder, but once it’s cooked, it will never be a perfectly even split, and neither will we, because life isn’t fair, just or even. That’s by design. We are not yet a land of robots. As long as humanity prevails, there will be inequities.
As far as rejection goes, this is something we all must deal with. And that’s okay. Rejection is protection. You don’t need a thousand people to say yes. You just need one.
And another fitting phrase to wrap this up: A man’s greatest fear is being humiliated. A woman’s greatest fear is being killed… by a man.
Do you still believe men take one 100% of the emotional risk in dating?
###
I caught my boyfriend airplane feeding my best friend. I walked into the kitchen just as he was zooming a forkful of Mac and cheese into her mouth, and they were giggling. They didn’t react at my being there; didn’t act like they were trying to hide anything. She just took the bite and then they went back to being normal. But I cannot get the image out of my head, and I don’t really understand what I saw. I have trust issues because I’ve been cheated on in the past, so I don’t want to blow this out of proportion. HELP!
Feeding someone—the act of placing life giving sustenance into their warm, wet, open mouth—is an intimate and highly erotic move. But it’s also a custom practiced in the care of elderly. And babies. Tender. Nurturing. Can be playful. Fully loaded and highly charged. OR completely innocuous, innocent, possibly even meaningless.
So, I believe this has little to do with the act itself—the slippery, dairy drenched noodle from the outstretched hand of your man connecting to the lips of your bestie, sliding down her throat and landing in the pit of her stomach—and more to do with what’s happening in the pit of yours. What does your gut tell you?
You should trust it. It’s probably right.
Need Advice? Email: askholly@playgirl.com
*I am not a doctor, therapist or professional counselor. This advice is for entertainment purposes only.
Holly Solem is a writer living in Los Angeles, CA. Read her Substack; HollyWould, watch her internet series, Manthropology and follow her on Instagram!
