Dear Alex,I am married. First time monogamous. I love him, I love the sex, I love the life. He is my intimacy, I am his. But I am also one of those slutty butterflies. My mother warned him, literally told him something like the butterfly/net analogy you wrote about in a recent post in Out.And yet, he still chose me. But the truth is, I love to flirt, I love cruising, I love men of all kinds, and yes, I love getting my dick sucked on my way to work. I even fell in love with a hookup boy once, yes, while married, without ever falling out of love with my husband, and it was chaos. Now Im asking you, am I just stupid? Am I selfish? Do I need therapy?Signed, Wont Stop FlappingHey WSF, I answered a similar question not long ago on my Substack site an advice blog for men of all sexual leanings called Love, Beastly. But that question and the guy who asked it was different, in subtle ways, from your question, and from you. He was actively, willfully cheating on his partner and had been for years; he signed his letter Terrible Gay Husband and was fully aware of his behavior. My sternly worded reply to him was that he should leave his husband right now, otherwise he would cross the line into just being a bad guy an abusive, manipulative partner, the kind of man I warn people about. Based on your question, I dont think youre quite there yet. But you should, as my grandmother used to say, sit and have a think. Humans crave sex and close relationships. We need novelty and security, freedom and commitment. We have strong biological needs for promiscuity and pair-bonding. We evolved this way, and in our ancient past, these twin impulses were not in opposition to each other. In their groundbreaking book Sex at Dawn: How We Mate, Why We Stray, and What It Means for Modern Relationships, researchers Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jetha investigate human fossil records, the social patterns of our closest primate relatives, and modern hunter-gather tribes to concluded that Homo sapiens are naturally polyamorous and non-monogamous that we function best in clusters made up of individuals who are bonded together by sex and intimacy, who share the collective responsibilities of raising children, providing food and protection, and so on. This isnt surprising, if you think about it evidence of this past is all around us. Adults in the modern world still trust other adults to teach (and raise) their children while they work jobs that put food on the table. It takes a village, we say and it does. In our most ideal, natural state, this village is united by love, trust, and sex too. But the idea of these clusters a rather radical one by todays standards is in opposition to the strictures of monogamy and two-person relationships that exist in most modern societies, due in large part to religion and other factors. The divorce rate alone should be enough to prove that this system doesnt work well for us, but its not. People still have a hard time reasoning that maybe just maybe monogamy is a bad deal, an ill-fitting setup that our ancient hominid ancestors did not evolve to do. All this is to say that I fully believe you love your partner and crave the novelty of new, fleeting sexual encounters. That is human nature. Unfortunately, we have to live in a modern world with modern rules. Natural or not, youre still breaking his trust and harming him. You say it was chaos when you fell in love with a hookup boy. I interpret that to mean you told your husband about it which is, I must stress, the right thing to do. If you did tell him, good. That means the truth still means something to you and still matters in your relationship. Being a good steward of the truth and honoring it is called integrity, and if that still matters to you, your relationship has a fighting chance. The fact is, there is no ethical solution that gives you an adventurous sex life with a husband who wont permit it. There is no way to enjoy both without deception and lying without being a bad partner and bad person. There is, of course, a path to having both with honesty and integrity with the right guy, someone who permits it and that is ethical non-monogamy. Unfortunately, you cant make him (or anyone) comfortable with non-monogamy if he is opposed to it. You can discuss it at length and you should but if your husband says he absolutely cannot let you have sex with others, thats it. From there, you must choose between sexual freedom or the confines of a (loving) relationship that forbids outside hookups, getting your dick sucked on the way to work, and so on. Thats a hard choice, and its a shame it must be made, but its the same choice all monogamous people have to make in the modern world the very idea of monogamy requires it. In monogamous relationships, a person is forced to choose between two biological needs that are entirely natural to our species. Now, if you havent told him about the hookup boy, the dick sucking, and all the other outside dalliances, youre in a harder spot, and Id say this relationship is ruined. Why? Because youve already broken his trust. Even if he could learn to trust you again after you tell him the truth as you must he would have good reason to doubt your ability to be honest going forward. An ethically non-monogamous relationship needs transparent, open, reliable communication total honesty in order to work, for everyone to feel safe and cared for, and youve already shown your inability to provide that. If you havent told him anything yet, he should dump you. As for therapy: yes, you need therapy, because everyone needs therapy. Do I think you need therapy for this? No, I do not. I am so tired of the "sex addiction" claim. It's an easy way to eschew blame and responsibility. "It's not my fault, I'm sick." Yes, some people do have legitimate, clinical sexual compulsions people who compulsively masturbate in public or can't stop groping strangers on the train and these people often require therapy and institutionalization. In my view, most people who call themselves sex addicts are just people who shame, judge, and misunderstand their own desires and behaviors, and instead of trying to understand them, they self-pathologize and call it an illness. You have legitimate desires, and if you weren't in your current relationship, satisfying them would be no problem. The things you want are normal. I love hot, anonymous sex with hookup boys. Be a freak! Do it all! Thats fine the sex is not the problem. The lying is. Youre married and possibly (probably) lying to your husband by not telling him what youre doing. Thats the problem. Babe, you are allowed to have an adventurous sex life, but you arent allowed to hide it from the one person on earth who trusts you with his emotions as well as his physical safety. If youre having these experiences without telling him, you are harming him. After he finds out, think about how much it will hurt think about how long it will take him to heal, to trust others again, and to have a healthy relationship again. Thatll be your fault. Also, if you havent told him, Im sorry to inform you: He knows, or some part of him knows. He might be denying it in his mind or trying to look the other way, but he knows, and if he doesn't, he will. It is impossible to keep cheating without a partner finding out. And heres where Ill tell you the same thing I told the guy who messaged me on Love, Beastly because its important. If you dont have a discussion soon on non-monogamy and try to open up your relationship if you just keep sneaking in little dick-suckings and hookups without your partners knowledge or consent you will cross the line from being a regular guy struggling to reconcile your various needs, and youll just be a bad guy. That line, that boundary, is the difference between nice married guy figuring things out and being a malicious and deceitful partner. Once that line is crossed, youd become someone I would not be friends with and would not let my friends date. There are, actually, just bad guys in the world. In the best-case scenario, youre in a tough transition out of monogamy, and that transition is difficult for most people. I went through a sloppy transition out of monogamy, and during that time, my behavior was less than ideal. I am not proud of the hurt I caused as I struggled to figure things out; I'd wager most ethically non-monogamous people can say the same. But there is a point at which my sympathy ends a point at which you are no longer a confused beginner in a tough transition, but just being hurtful. Dont be a bad guy. Hey there! Im Alexander Cheves. Im a sex writer and former sex worker I worked in the business for over 12 years. You can read my sex-and-culture column Last Call in Out and my book My Love Is a Beast: Confessions, from Unbound Edition Press. But be warned: Kirkus Reviews says the book is "not for squeamish readers.In the past, I directed (ahem) adult videos and sold adult products. I have spoken about subjects like cruising, sexual health, and HIV at the International AIDS Conference, SXSW, the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and elsewhere, and appeared on dozens of podcasts.Here, Im offering sex and relationship advice to Outs readers. Send your question to askbeastly@gmail.com it may get answered in a future post.