3D rendering of yellow spheres with question marks
I just had an interesting call, though one that is not unique to our practice. It could have been a man or a woman, but let’s make it a female caller with a male partner who asks, “My partner is curious about having sex with (fill in the blank). Should I let him?” The blank could be any number of people or things–an escort at a high end Nevada brothel, a massage with a happy ending, or the family dog. (Someone asking about the dog is true.)
The person calling rarely comes in for an appointment. They are “simply” looking for validation that their decision is correct: Yes, I should let him, or no, I should not. They might recite some rationale for their decision. And then they wait for the answer, right there, on the phone.
Here is the answer from one of the top sex therapists in the country. Are you ready for it? It’s, “How the heck should I know?”
I don’t know the caller. I don’t know the partner. I have no idea if either one is mentally healthy, what sort of relationship they have, how emotionally mature they are, if they have tried something like this in the past, whether or not there have been issues of trust, if they are committed to the relationship, or any one of the countless things that I assess when I see a couple.
If the couple wants to come in to discuss if, and how, they want to open up their relationship, I can help. If they opened up their relationship and one of them is no longer interested in this arrangement, I can help with that, too.
But I cannot validate a choice I know nothing about. Psychologists specialize in individual cases. We are trained to ask questions to find out how a person copes, their communication style, whether or not there is trauma that is triggering a certain reaction, and so forth. What we don’t do is tell people what to do.
Should you let your partner do (fill in the blank)? Let me answer in the tradition of the great psychologists before me: I don’t know–should you?