Tied in knots on October 5, 1998…

Dear Breakup Girl,

Please help with a delicate situation. I can’t speak to any of my friends about it, so I turn to you hoping for guidance.

I have been with my boyfriend for about 5 months. We are both professionals, I’m 32, he’s 28. We fell in love pretty quickly, but it feels right. I have been in three long-term relationships before, he in two.

Here is the problem: I discovered something by accident on his computer one night — addresses to some racy Internet sites about bondage, etc. Now normally, I wouldn’t worry. Just guy stuff, right? Well, the issue is that about 4 out of 5 times when we have sex, he doesn’t come. I do, but he doesn’t.

We talked about it and he said he is happy with our sex life. I didn’t ask him about the Internet sites. The stuff he is into seems like it doesn’t hurt anyone. He is into submission, I think. I went to one of the sites and found a matchmaker section with an ad he placed. I don’t think he had done anything with anyone since we have been together. We are together 24/7.

What should I do?

1. Let him know that I know…and explore this with him.

2. Blow it off and hope the sex gets better on its own.

Please help.

— Lisa Ann

Dear Lisa Ann,

First of all, brava! You’re so nice and non-judgmental about something that often wigs the heck out of people; this is promising, ’cause chances are your boyfriend isn’t going to bring this up.

Now we’re gonna go talk to our official expert, Mistress Belleruth, okay? She says, basically, that Option 2 is out. “She definitely shouldn’t ignore it, ’cause their sex life will only get worse… and worse… and he could end up depressed or outta there or cheating. Besides, now they both have secrets, and they’ll just loom larger and larger. But before you bring it up, you should try to get clear in your own mind how you’d feel about pleasing him on his own terms — if in fact, he would like you to tie him up, say, or administer the occasional spanking… how would you feel about that?? If you don’t mind, great. But if you’re really freaked, you’ll need to be clear on that to him. And then it’s a dilemma that you can at least share and puzzle over together, out in the open.”

And we can infer from your tone that you’ll bring this up sensitively and non-blamingly, right? ‘Cause otherwise, well, that’s not the kind of punishment he’s into.

Love,
Breakup Girl