Cuckolding

by eleanorofa

The other day, I received a message from a very polite fellow on okcupid worrying about his recently developed cuckold fetish. Here is an excerpt from his message:

“Somehow, it seems I’ve developed the cuckold fantasy, or some variant thereof [...] And I can’t tell whether it’s the intense attraction to a strong woman, to a conquering woman or to a woman whose sexuality it just plain old uninhibited (isn’t this the fantasy of many guys?), but it’s become real enough that I wonder what the heck is going on. It’s also become so real that when dating women, I kind of drop mild hints about it. […] And I think of it less and less as a fetish and more and more as something I just want in a relationship. Could I be wrong? Could I be really wrong and missing something? Is it an eroticized fear? I don’t know, but it’s something that’s been on my mind for a while, and I’m beginning to wonder what’s up, and how it’s become such a dominant theme.”

So first off, let’s attempt to clarify what a cuckold fetish (which I’ll abbreviate as CF) is. As it happens, I’ve examined CFes a fair bit because my husband myrlyn kept claiming he doesn’t have one (I think he’s right). Classic CF goes like this: man (usually married) wants his female partner (wife) to go fuck other men and Dom him. In real life, this tends to include things like sucking another man’s come out of the wife (“clean-up”), being told that the other man has a bigger cock, and engaging in foreplay with her before she goes to have sex with another man. On fetlife, nearly 3,000 people list themselves as “into” or “curious” about cuckoldry.

I want to be really, really clear here: classic CF is not inherently polyamorous. It is neither poly nor mono, it is primarily submissive. People who occasionally indulge a CF are quite likely to be poly, since they’re already in a context that readily allows for it. CF lifestylers (that is, married couples where only the wife sleeps with other people and doms her husband in the process), on the other hand, I think less likely to be poly, since the CF mindset is more oriented towards monogamy.

Now because my querent implicitly brought it up, (“And I can’t tell whether it’s the intense attraction to a strong woman, to a conquering woman or to a woman whose sexuality it just plain old uninhibited”) I’m going to attempt the nearly-impossible and probably somewhat pointless task of disambiguating cuckold fetishists from what I call slut fetishists. In my opinion, slut fetishists are the polyamorous version of cuckold fetishists, but since a large number of cuckold fetishists on fetlife (who are almost certainly not a representative sample) identify as poly, I might be wrong. Slut fetishists get off on having partners who are sluts. This can include watching/listening to/and/or hearing about their partner having sex with other partners, getting gang-banged and/or participate in orgies. In my opinion, slut fetishes are more polyamorous than cuckold fetishes, but many slut fetishists may also be swingers.

Keep in mind that the most powerful sexual organ is the mind, and what is, by all appearances, the same sexual act and experience can change drastically depending on the context in which it is enacted. Consider a man going down on a woman: is he dominant or submissive in this act? The answer, of course, is that it depends on how he does it. Slut fetishes and cuckold fetishes may look identical from the outside, but the emphasis in the former is sexual pleasure and even possibly the woman’s submission to it, and the emphasis in the latter is the man’s submission and humiliation. They are not really mutually exclusive: in a single memorable evening, my husband and I managed to pull off both. He sent me off in grand slut fetishist style by stripping off my clothes and instructing me to inform my (now-ex) boyfriend in the guest room that “I sent you like that.” Then he received me back in cuckold fetishist style by having me sit on his face. It’s all about how you do it.

And now to directly answer some of my querent’s concerns: is there anything “wrong” with CF? No, not any more or less than women having rape fetishes. Desire is culturally constructed and culturally constrained, and the same cultural norms that have traditionally given men ownership of women have also produced men who eroticize the transgression of those norms. Indulging in CF also gives plenty of women the satisfaction of appearing to conform to ladylike norms of monogamy while actually getting plenty of cock—a lady in the streets and a freak in the sheets, as it were. Is CF an “eroticized fear”? I’d say for men it’s more an eroticized inferiority complex, but essentially, my answer is yes. Is that a problem? I don’t think so. Especially since there are plenty of gals out there who would just love to fuck your ass with a strap-on because your dick isn’t big enough for them and they’d rather their boyfriend did them… hmm… that sounds pretty hot to me, actually

As for my personal two cents, I tend to be suspicious of most “lifestyle” arrangements. I totally respect people’s right to them, but I don’t really understand how a 24/7 power imbalance “works” for people in primary or monogamous relationships. On the other hand, I don’t really “get” monogamy either, so I know I’m a weirdo. I personally would be happy to be part of lifestyle cuckold arrangement with a secondary partner, but that’s almost inimical to the fantasy, which focuses more on transgressing marriage norms.

But I do have a few cautions. First, if it’s a lifestyle arrangement you want, you would probably be better off recruiting potential partners from fetish conventions and websites than pursuing regular dating venues and just hoping for the best. Second, spend a lot of time considering the kind of lifestyle you really want. For example, would you be upset if your wife wanted an emotional relationship with men she was fucking? If the answer is “no,” then you can marry a poly woman, if the answer is “yes,” then you’d better not. Finally, keep in mind that even cuckold fetishists can get jealous. Because so much of CF is about D/s dynamics, you can accomplish a great deal through some really dirty talking that can remove some of the actual complications of your wife actually having sex with another men. For example, how would you feel if she became pregnant and you weren’t sure who the father was? Don’t pretend like that can’t happen, and don’t embark on a lifestyle arrangement without addressing issues of birth control and STI protection first.

If it’s safe, sane, and consensual between two or more adults, I say go for it. And good luck.