the key is on my nipple ring

Fantasy, Problem Solving, or Both? September 12, 2010

Out there in the “big picture” world of male chastity, there seems to be two predominant paradigms as to why people become interested in chastity in the first place. For men, it is a long-held and deeply desired fantasy. For women, it’s a way to solve problems. But as with everything in life, I am discovering that it’s not that black and white.

Let’s start with the fantasy angle. I think it is safe to say that we all have various fantasies and dreams, things we like to imagine when we are having sex or daydreaming about sex. Some of these fantasies will never become true (I like to imagine having sex with Hugh Jackman but I know that it will never, ever happen. Sigh…that doesn’t stop my imagination, though!). But some fantasies do have the potential to move into the realm of reality. Maybe this is the place when a fantasy becomes a kink: when you are able to talk about it with your partner and express why it is important to you to be able to act on this dream.

Taking it a step further—when you have identified this kinky thing you want to do, and you are unable to act on this wish, the natural response is to become frustrated. Frustrated, and perhaps resentful of the person who is preventing you from achieving your desired goal. That frustration then becomes the problem that may cascade into a whole host of other problems and at that point, finding a solution may not be very straightforward.

So, while many people (men, mostly, from what I read) say that they came to chastity through a fantasy or long-held desire, what may have propelled this to the forefront was the fact that the wish for this to be reality was causing a problem in their lives and relationships. A problem that the partner may not even be aware of if the desirer (or wisher) has never opened his/her mouth about the fact that this is what he/she wants.

Coming at it from the problem solving side of the coin, I have read many accounts where women have desired chastity from their husbands and in their relationships to solve a problem. The problems most commonly identified are: 1) infidelity; 2) chronic masturbation; or 3) an addiction to porn.

Let’s take these one at a time.

Infidelity. This is a toughie. The notion of locking up your man’s cock to keep it from finding its way to other women’s vaginas (or men’s asses) is a little medieval and I am not sure is really a workable solution. If the underlying problem is so deep-rooted—the relationship is on the rocks, there is no real communication between the partners—then a $150+ chastity device is not going to be the solution, IMHO. On the other hand, if the infidelity was a fling as an expression of frustration (see above), then maybe this is the tipping point to initiate the conversation that the desiring-of-chastity partner wants/needs to have.

Chronic masturbation. Is there really such a thing? Is it possible to masturbate “too much”? I don’t think the act itself is chronic; I think the problem comes in when the outcomes of frequent masturbation affect the relationship: a man prefers to have sex with his hand rather than his wife because he is better able to stimulate himself and produce more satisfying (in his mind) orgasms than she is. Or, the refractory period (the recovery time between having an orgasm and being able to have the next one) becomes long enough that a man who masturbates in the morning is not able to have orgasmic sex in the evening, which is a frustration for his wife. I actually found out that I was dealing with both these problems with Ab although I didn’t realize it until we began this chastity exploration.

Addiction to porn. Again, is there really such a thing? Depending on which survey you read, 100% of men and 80% of women read/use/consume porn. Ab teases me because I read so many male/male romance stories which I steadfastly maintain aren’t porn. But at the end of the day, they do titillate and I enjoy them for that reason. 🙂 Like masturbation, I think porn becomes a problem when it interferes with outcomes that both partners want. If a man is locked in his computer room constantly rubbing one out to XXX rated images and movies, ignoring his wife in the other room….yeah, that’s an issue.

So…men want chastity as a fantasy and women want chastity to solve a problem. Then there’s me. I read a story, it was hot, I imagined my husband locked up. Sounds like a fantasy to me! But once we started playing this game, I learned that there were problems I wasn’t fully aware of—and this in a couple who has a high level of good, honest, open communication (in my estimation). Knowing that, I can understand why it might be very difficult for a man to bring up chastity as a wish or desire to his wife; likewise, I can see why a woman would have to feel that her marriage was on the edge of catastrophe to suggest chastity as a solution.

Desperate times call for drastic measures, as they say.

Once you’ve sorted it out in your mind that you want to have the “chastity conversation,” the question becomes: how do you bring it up?

I think the key is to keep it simple and straightforward. Don’t make a big deal of it. In my case, I was surfing around the net looking at pictures of chastity devices and then just put one up on the screen and showed it to Ab. “What do you think?” I asked. “Does that look hot to you?” He’s a visual guy and something clicked in his brain. “Yes, it does,” he said. And from there, we were off and running.

I received an email from a woman who told me she did essentially the same thing. She was concerned about his level of masturbation and was looking for solutions. She came across an article on chastity—a subject that was totally new to her. “At first I was shocked,” she wrote. “Then I thought it was funny.” At first her husband thought she was off her rocker, then he became intrigued. That was eleven months ago.

The cool thing is, once chastity is out there as a solution to a problem, it works. It works incredibly well, at least in my short-term experience. And from what I have read online, and emails I have received from other folks, we are not unusual in this regard.

It’s not just the caring and attentive behavior. Yes, that’s great but I think the bigger benefit has been increased communication. No, I take that back. The biggest benefit has been that he’s horny and I’m horny and we’re having lots of sex. And we’re talking about that, and what that means. That’s where the communication comes in. That’s really cool for a couple in their mid-fifties, don’t you think? I do.

I’ll be writing more about the refractory period and self-stimulation issues but for the moment, I am going to stop here. Comments, as always, are welcome. These are my musings but I do appreciate what others have to say and think about all this stuff.