By Gabe Delahaye and Jane Marie
Illustration by Lindsay Mound
I went to a show with a girl I have been having sex with for a while with no strings attached. I know she wants to be my girlfriend but I don’t like her like that. I ran into a female friend of a friend who is married and looked absolutely stunning. We were all hanging out and I was reminded how unequivocally charming and hilarious she is. The show started and we were all watching together. The girl I was with was in front of me and the married one behind. I was in a chick sandwich — the front is rubbing her ass on my crotch and I feel the married one in back pushing up also. So I’m leaning back and dancing with both unbeknownst to the one in front but really getting a hard on bc of how much married woman in back felt. Front girl thought she was killing it as a result of my erection that had nothing to do with her. Show was over, we said our goodbyes and decided to go to another bar. Guess who’s there? She must have just went for a drink earlier and was on her way out. Bummer. We hugged tightly and she said in my ear, “Too bad you didn’t get here sooner or we could have fucked in the bathroom” and disappeared.
If I ever find myself in this position again, is it out of line to make a move or go for it if the opportunity presents itself?
As I get older, it feels more responsible and mature to avoid judging how other people live their lives, since living one’s life is so complicated on its own without the unsolicited opinions of others, but boy oh boy sometimes it is so hard not to judge!!! And luckily, in this case, our opinion WAS solicited! So we get to say whatever we want, and let me start by saying: gross.
The biggest problem here is that I think if you were to strip this question down to the studs (no pun intended), there’s actually an interesting situation worth discussing, which is the difficulty of monogamy, the fluidity of sexual attraction, and the freedom of choice that consenting adults enjoy. “Front girl,” as he calls her, is choosing to stay with Chick Sandwich, which either means she’s perfectly content with non-committal sex as a modern woman obviously can be, or she is one of those people who ignores red flags and latches onto people who will def never give her what she wants or needs or deserves, but either way she bears some responsibility for what’s happening in her relationship. We can question “Married woman”’s behavior, but we all know that marriage is complicated and who even knows what her situation is anyway. So, all in all, there is plenty to unpack here, so it’s unfortunate that the suitcase is SO DISGUSTING.
Hoo boy, here we go. As a married woman, I do not give two shits about “Front girl.” She’s fine, whatever. Maybe someday she’ll be married to someone who either gets boners from her or from other people and that will be the LEAST of her worries.
Okay, two things popped into my head as I read this:
1. Boners are ubiquitous. I mean, I love them, but they are literally EVERYWHERE, CONSTANTLY. How do you guys live?
2. Have you read “Mating in Captivity?” Everyone should. Essentially, it’s about how the predictability of a monogamous relationship is the opposite of sexy and what there is to be done about it.
It sounds like this married lady is doing great! So she went out and danced with someone and flirted way too directly. Back in the day, we called that “Ladies Night.” No one exchanged numbers, no one made out or fucked, and everyone went home alone at the end of the night. That’s monogamy. (Okay, so she didn’t have to say she wanted to fuck this guy.)
Now, to answer his question that he finally gets to after talking about his dick forever: It doesn’t matter. As the non-married person in the equation, do whatever you want. I’ve had friends ask me about this in the past, and my answer is that if you want to experience the breadth of human relationships, kiss a married person, sure. If you feel bad about it, never do it again.
I’m not sure that it sounds like the married woman is doing “great,” Jane. I mean, I hope that she is! But something tells me that if you are starting to chafe at the constraints of your marriage and your go-to relief hitter is a guy who refers to his primary sexual partner as “Front girl,” then your situation is at best “manageable.”
That’s the basic underlying problem here. The question itself is totally legitimate and fairly straightforward: Can an unattached man or woman have sex with someone who is married if they both want to? Yes. Obviously. There are, like, at least three movies about this very thing, and one of them is called You Can Count On Me, and it’s great. But the fact that this dude was gross about it, I want the answer to be no. If you are bragging that your primary sexual partner thinks she gave you a boner when she didn’t even give you a boner because someone else gave you a boner, then I kind of don’t want you to get boners anymore.
I know that there is very little room for politesse when it comes to sneaking bathroom sex with married strangers while your backup option waits outside, but like, just be cool, guys. Can’t we all be cool?
Okay, Gabe, we’re going off the tracks here. You refer to “Front girl” as his “primary sexual partner.” He never says that girl is his girlfriend OR primary sexual partner. He specifically says it’s “no strings attached.” Why are you reading so much into this?
LOL.
Point taken. Maybe I’m assigning too much of my own value system to their relationship. But even if the guy doesn’t give a shit about her and has a small menagerie of “Front girl”s that he rotates out on a bi-weekly basis to keep things interesting, which is not uncommon and is his right as an American, he’s still sleeping with her on a regular basis and knows that she wants to be his girlfriend, so, as far as I’m concerned, it’s not the CHILLEST of all possible setups, and I do think he’s being kind of crude, but if you want him to be your boyfriend so badly I think you should totally go for it the next time the opportunity presents itself, but I will continue to reserve the right to my opinions.
I love it when you’re wrong.
More Great Advice from Gabe and Jane:
Need some great advice? Want to feel slightly better about the not-great thing you’re probably going to do anyway? Send your questions to Gabe and Jane, at matteradvice@medium.com.
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