Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label psychology. Show all posts

Friday, August 13, 2010

So what's all this cuckold stuff really about?

One of the little kinks featured in this blog is Mistress’s contractual right to engage in sexual activities with other men. It was thrown into our agreement because, due to lazy lawyering, I copied , then customized, a form “Slave” contract I found on the internet.

Quite frankly, before that language about Mistress’s rights was tossed into our frothy brew here in the Collins’ household, Mistress and her Slave never even talked about the “cuckold” option (though Mistress being taken by another woman was an active part of our salacious fantasy life., and once or twice, actually happened with much hotness ensuing as she recounted the tales of her exploits).

But once the words were in print, and the contract was signed, they suddenly took on a sexy life of their own.

Mistress suddenly started tossing off “available” vibes, and the flirtations began. The guys who approached her in line at the Post Office. Or in the elevator at work. Was it just her / our imagination, or was there some chemical brew that altered her pheromone outtake that was having some odd effect.

Mistress turned a random on-line “what’s up after all these years” contact into her juicy cyber flirtation with E (the college ex from the northland). She interviewed some prospective doms that came out of the woodwork through Craigslist and FetLife. She had a few steamy encounters with Sir M here in River City (referred to by one commenter as “the starter Dom”); and more recently there has been her intriguing phone – text – email relationship with M, our Western Correspondent. And she discovered that she could be both my Domme and someone else’s Sub

All in all, she seems to have enjoyed the fun, though there have been stresses, frustrations and insecurities exposed along the way.

And the surprise to me was that it was a rather compelling, if befuddling turn on. I ran the concept by a Psychologist I know, who gave me a semi-”validation”. “No, Mick, it’s not that bizarre. Just be careful with it.” She gave me a few half-baked reasons why this is a guy turn on, mostly focused on “when other guys want your wife, that confirms you have a good one.” But that hardly explained why Mistress’s descriptions about what she had done or would like to do with another guy turned me on.

More recently, I found an article posted at Psychology Today by Dr. David Ley, linked here, http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/women-who-stray/201006/kinky-cuckolding-fetish-goes-mainstreamthat goes into the phenomenon which seems to be hot these days (in both senses of “hot”). He has listed a number of potential and possibly overlapping explanations for my unanticipated reaction to Mistress’s “stepping out”. I can relate to some, say “yuck” to others.

Here goes:





“I thought I would use this posting to explore these issues, and invite discussion of what these various reasons might be. Even though this practice of wife-sharing focuses on the wife's sexuality, in my experience, this is almost always (99% of the time) prompted by the husband's request. Wives simply do not often or unprompted go to their husbands and request they have permission to have sex with other men. I will tell you that in the research for my book, I heard lots of varied reasons for this desire from various husbands. Some of the reasons were nice, and some were not so nice. I think a discussion of this phenomenon deserves consideration of all the reasons and motivations. So - here you go - my list of the motivations, based upon my research, behind why men would be interested in watching their wives with other men:
• Voyeurism - many folks suggest that we live in a "pornified culture," where most men of college-age and older have seen pornography, and use it as a part of their sexual repertoire. If they are used to such a voyeuristic process in their sexuality, there is some legitimacy to suggesting they may incorporate it into their marital sexuality. Watching your wife have sex with another man may be a next step, or progression, from watching yourselves have sex by having a mirror on the ceiling during sex, then using a video camera during sex, and then finally watching one's spouse with someone else. Many men told me "My wife is the most beautiful woman in the world to me, I'd rather watch her having sex than some porn actress I don't know."

Not so much a part of the enticement for me. I have never had the opportunity to watch Mistress in action. What we have shared are her “post action” reports. Hot. Very Hot. 

Though we have talked about a situation where Slave was required to watch Mistress enjoy the attentions of another Man ….and I must say that has a certain appeal to both of us. I can relate to the guy who says that, if given the choice, I would much rather see a video of Mistress having sex than some overly pumped up porn actress.

• “Sperm competition - as Christopher Ryan, author Terry Gould, and researchers Baker and Bellis have suggested, there is a biological response playing out here, that affects a male sexual drive. After watching their wife with another man, the husband is prompted biologically to have longer, more vigorous sex, has a shorter refractory period between erections, ejaculates harder, and his ejaculate contains more sperm. Nearly every couple I interviewed told me that after an episode of the wife having sex with another man, the couple felt like they were "in heat."”

This seems to make sense….when Mistress has just concluded one of her cyber “dates” with M, or when she got home from one of her real dates with Sir M, we are / were crazy in lust for one another.


• “The Thrill of the Taboo - there are few things in our society as stigmatized as a husband whose wife is unfaithful. Historically, such men have been beaten, ostracized and ridiculed, and regarded as weak, "sissy men." Some of the men I interviewed described explicitly that the taboo was the thrill for them, from the excitement of the forbidden and the naughty.”

Not so much here. I don’t know that the beating part would be too appealing. And how can you call it “unfaithful” when she has permission?


• “Female empowerment - I was surprised by how many of these couples embraced very powerful feminist principles, and how many of these husbands described the joy they felt at their wife's increased independence, confidence and assertiveness, that came from the wife's freedom to have sex with other men. Many of the men expressed that through their wife's open sexuality, the couple was actively and consciously rejecting social pressures to suppress female sexuality, assert monogamy and patriarchal power.”

Yeaaah Baby! I like Mistress when she is flashing the power and confidence that comes with her remarkable beauty, smarts and street savvy. When she is being pursued by other men, and accepting or blowing off their attention, she is at her most powerful.


• “Bisexuality - In more than half of the men I interviewed, male bisexuality played a role in the husband's desires to watch his wife have sex with another man. This played out in many different dynamics. Sometimes, bringing a man to bed with the wife was a pretext, a bait and switch if you will, for the husband to then engage sexually with the man as well. Sometimes, the husbands were very concerned about being seen as heterosexual, but they spent an awful lot of time looking for well-endowed men for their wife. To my mind, a man who is that focused on the size of other men's penises really doesn't qualify as all that straight.”

No way for this Slave. No offense intended, but….pleasse….keep those cocks away from me.


• “Physical health issues - In Lady Chatterley's Lover, Lord Chatterley was physically unable to have intercourse with his wife (though, as my own wife points out, his fingers and tongue still worked just fine - why wasn't he using them?). I did see a number of men who reported that due to physical complaints, they weren't able to be as vigorous in bed as they and their wives would like. While the wives by and large were happy with things as they were, the husbands often felt their wife's loss of sexual satisfaction more strongly than the wife themselves, and were motivated to encourage the wife to sleep with other men.”

Thankfully, that’s not a problem in the Collins’ Household. Though I suppose it depends on what Mistress’s expectations are. 2-3 times a day is about my max. (Absent some of the days when the “sperm competition” factor mentioned above kicks in).



• “Female sexual fulfillment - women's sexual capacity is far greater than that of males'. The world record for male orgasms is about 26 in a 24-hour period. Per Sherfey's research, women have documented as many as 60-65 orgasms in a single hour. I saw many men who reported that their wives were highly sexual beings, with a greater sexual capacity, and it simply turned the husbands on and pleased them to be able to see their wives sexually satisfied, at a degree that a single husband couldn't match. I also speculate that there is a degree of vicarious experience here - by being a part of the experience, the husband gets to vicariously experience what it's like to have that greater sexual capacity, and identifies in a strong manner with his wife and the essence of female sexuality in a way that most men never experience.”

This makes sense to me. As I have written here before, Mistress has a wonderful sexual appetite. If it takes a village to keep her pleased, then I am happy to be just one of  the contented and attentive Villagers.


• “Masochism - Leopold von Sacher-Masoch was a 19th century fan of flagellation, who wrote Venus in Furs, about dominant women. Masochism was named after him. Leopold posted ads in German newspapers of the day, looking for "energetic young men" to befriend and pleasure his wife. (Check out Craigslist, and you'll see Leopold's modern counterparts) Leopold's interest in the experience was specifically the humiliation aspects, of being cuckolded, treated as weak, lesser, and not a real man. Like those who seek the Taboo, the cuckolds often seek out a strong SM flavor, where the husbands are dominated, belittled and degraded.”

Yeah, weird shit. But I gotta say…..this turns up the temperature for this humble Slave. Maybe after acting the uber competent professional for most of my adult life, a little humiliation is exactly what I deserve and need.


• “Financial reasons - Most of the women working in Nevada's brothels have husbands and boyfriends at home, who benefit from the wife's sexual exploits for pay. It's not always about the money. A friend, and a wife interviewed in my first book, told me that when she was working as a manager at a brothel, one of the women always called her husband on her cellphone, before bringing a man back to her room for a "party." Unbeknownst to the man, her husband was getting off listening in on the phone. The financial part is a piece that can't be ignored, as it has been around for a long time. In England, men would sometimes set up their wives to be seduces by a man, so that the husband could then sue the man in court. In Florida, in the 1990's, the Sheriff husband of the "Housewife Hooker" hid in the closet videotaping his "nymphomaniac wife" with other men (notably republican politicians), whom the husband then blackmailed.”

Nope….no checkbook motivation in the Collins’ home. Just plain old sex seems to be what gets me / us off. Not that Mistress wouldn’t make a very valued Courtesan.


• “The royalty perk - In the 1960's Motown song, the line goes "save the last dance for me," as the husband watches his wife dance with other men. Many of the men I interviewed got a thrill, a sense of being "king" that they had a wife who was so sexy, that other men wanted to be with, but who ultimately came home with him, the husband. It made the men feel powerful and successful, that they had such a sexy wife.”

This sounds like what that psychologist told me some months ago. And it still rings true. It’s nice to think that Mistress can sample all those other appealing cocks out there, and that they long for her, but that she still wants to come home to mine.

• “Misogyny - sadly, I saw some couples where the husband's encouragement of the wife to have sex with other men was about a degrading of the woman. Some of these men talked about treating the wife as a whore, as a piece of meat, and "taking her down a peg."”

Yuck. Mistress needs to be exalted, not degraded. This is not turn on for me.

Hope this article provides some food for thought. Can’t wait to hear how Mistress reacts to these various explanations for our “cuckold” kink.

And I look forward to hearing any alternative theories (or motivations ) that our other readers care to share.