Q: I’m a 29-year-old straight woman facing a dilemma. I dated this guy about a year ago, and in many ways he was exactly the guy I was looking for. The main hitch was sexual. Our sex was good, but he had a fetish where he wanted me to sleep with other guys. Basically, he gets off on a girl being a “slut.” He was also into threesomes or swapping with another couple. I experimented with all of that for a few months, and in a way I had fun with it, but I finally realized that this lifestyle is not for me. I want a more traditional, monogamous relationship. I broke it off with him. We reconnected recently, and he wants to get back together. He says that he wants to be with me, even if it means a more traditional sex life. I’m interested, but suspicious. If he decides to forgo his fetish in order to be with me, can he ever feel truly fulfilled with our sex life? I don’t want to be with someone I can’t completely satisfy. I also worry that down the road he might change his mind and try to convince me to experiment with nonmonogamy again, which would make me feel pressured. I’m looking for someone to settle down with, and I’m scared to waste more time on this guy, even though in many ways he’s a great fit. Do you think it’s possible for us to be happy together in a traditional arrangement when deep down he wants more? —Interested Despite Kink

Kinky people sometimes place a few of their kinks on the shelf for years, decades, or all their lives because they love their partners but their partners don’t love their proclivity for ball busting/piss pigging/whatever-evering. And, yes, sometimes people say they’re willing to let go of a kink and then change their minds and start pressuring their partners years or decades later—often when it’s much harder for the nonkinky partner to end things, i.e., after marrying, having kids, etc. Another thing that sometimes happens: people who never thought they’d be into x and married someone with the understanding that x was forever off the table suddenly find themselves curious about x and wanting to give x a try years or decades later. Who we are and what we want at 39 or 49 can look very different than who we were and what we wanted at 29.

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