Sexolve 300: 'My Husband Is a Sex Worker'

Sexolve 300 | In his weekly column, Harish Iyer offers advice on your love, sex and relationship queries.

Sexolve is equal rights activist Harish Iyer’s Q&A space on FIT.

If you have any queries regarding sex, sexuality, or your relationship, and need some advice, answers, or just someone to hear you out – write to Harish Iyer, and he’ll try and ‘sexolve’ it for you. Drop in a mail to [e-mail].

This week’s Q&As are below:

'My Husband Is a Sex Worker'

Dear RainbowMan

I am a 32-year-old woman, and my husband is also of the same age. Ours was a love marriage.

We have been married for 2 and a half years. We had a long courtship period, and we have explored everything, right from threesomes to S&M and various other things in bed.

"We were young and adventurous, we wanted to experience everything together."

There was this one time that we wanted to know how it feels like to “service” a customer like a sex worker, so we put our profiles on a dating site and sought money.

I went out with a woman and he with a man. We both got paid well. We laughed about it and thought of it as something that was more of a thrill.

Now that we are married to each other, post all our experiments with sex, we decided that we will be together — committed forever.

My husband works for an American company and goes out in the night to work.

He told me that as a software developer he gets paid per project and not a fixed sum per month. I believed him.

"I had no reason to doubt that. Until recently, when I saw his video of him offering a lap dance to a man."

It set me in a bid to find out more. I searched his emails and went through his phone to find explicit pictures and a profile in grindr that read “paid services”.

I have also seen some bite marks in his buttocks once, and I chose to ignore it as an itch. I am living now with the fact that my husband is a gigolo.

I haven't confronted him. I come from a respectable family and I don't know how we could live with this fact.

I haven't asked him because I am scared that our marriage will end in a break-up, and I love him. Please guide me.

Lost Soul

Dear Lost Soul,

This is deeply personal, thank you for trusting me with this information. I make no judgements on your sexapedes. You have the right to be young and wild, and you were. I just can ask people to be safe and respect consent in these sexual experiments.

A relationship is wonderful when people are able to share openly and be themselves.

For the record, in my opinion, sex work is not a disrespectable profession. However, for a moment, let’s take the focus away from the point of respect and look at it from the lens of honesty. At the beginning, pre marriage, your adventures began with honesty and kindness, but somewhere down the line, he has been living a parallel life that you are completely oblivious to. This is a cause of concern.

I wonder why you would not speak to your partner about this? What are you scared of? — That he would leave you? That it would start an unpleasant argument?

Not all quarrels are bad. Not all arguments are futile.

Love that comforts, could confront too.

Every love deserves a dose of openness and honesty, and when that is not given, it is okay to ask. Sit down one day, and ask him. Dont keep the tone as accusatory, but that of a

discussion. Ask him why he didn't tell you. Tell him that he would need to be honest with you about what he is doing, because you would not like to be in the dark.

One cant predict what your husbands reaction to this will be, but it is good to keep yourself prepared.

There are times when people who are confronted with the truth that they have been hiding from us, turn violent. It is also common that they gaslight us. Let me share a personal example with you,

More than a decade ago, I saw photos of chats of my then boyfriend with a guy he was calling over for a booty call. I got sent this screenshot and I quickly confronted him.

He, instead of admitting his mistake, he started making me feel like I am a nasty person who doubts him. This process is called gaslighting.

Gaslighting is when someone makes you start doubting your own thoughts and kindness and makes you feel like the accused, where you are actually the victim.

Be prepared for all of that when you tell him what you expect of the relationship and also hear from him what are the boundaries that you could maintain in this relationship that you share with him.

Every relationship should have a set of rules that partners adhere to. Time that you set yours.

Be kind to yourself, let him know what you feel.

Smiles

RainbowMan

P.S. Best of luck

'My Dad Forces Mom for Sex'

Dear RainbowMan,

I am a 20 year old man from Barrackpore. My question is not about myself but about my mom.

I love her so much and can't see her suffering like this anymore. She is around 50 years old and my dad is 10 years elder to her. The problem is that even at this age, my father insists my mom to have sex with him.

She is not at all comfortable with it anymore but my father doesn't seem to understand her point. This has led to a lot of trouble between the two.

It has gone to the point that my mom does not feel safe when she is alone with my dad.

She often goes out somewhere making an excuse or even fakes illness a lot of times to avoid all this at home. I have even seen my dad watching porns on his phone.

I don't really know who is at fault and how can I help my parents deal with this situation.

They are my parents, so obviously I can't talk to them directly about it.

Even though I have tried but there is still a certain extent till where I can go and discuss it with them.

I would be highly grateful if you kindly help me with this issue of my parents by providing some kind of guidance or refer any person I can seek help from.

Regards,

Son

Dear Son,

Thank you for writing to me.

There are moments in life when we see our loved ones in pain, and we wish that we just had the opportunity to fight their battles for them. I am going through one such situation right now, and I have an inkling of how it could feel.

I wish we lived in a world where everyone could speak about sex and our challenges with it openly and even with our parents. I wish our parents also had a window open for them to be vulnerable with us and seek help.

I am cognisant of the fact that we dont live in an ideal world of that kind. However, we would need to attempt to articulate our feelings for them and motivate them to say no when they dont want to.

Have you tried breaking ice? Maybe, tell mom indirectly that she can choose to tell you if she is asked to do anything that she doesn't want to. Tell her that you would be with her supporting her and that if she needs some help she can ask you.

You could also connect her to women rights organisations in west bengal, a simple google search will give you some numbers.

Please check swayam.info for details. They are a grassroot organisation.

We can do all that we want to for our loved ones, but in the end, we also need to remember that we can be there with them and encourage them, but they have to fight their fight.

Give them time, share your courage, give them love. Guide your mother.

Smiles

RainbowMan

P.S. Believe.

Dear RainbowMan,

I am a person who likes a lot of bushes down there, like a forest, in my lovers, is that weird?

Weirdo

Dear Friend,

Thank you for writing in.

It is okay to fantasise about a clean shaven pubic area, it is also okay to fantasise about a wild bush out there. There is nothing weird.

Just ensure hygiene, protection and consent in sex with a fellow adult human.

That is vital.

Smiles

RainbowMan

P.S. Protect forests, if you like them. (you know what I mean?) tch... tch...