Yes, It Is A Spectrum.

Porn is great. I certainly enjoy it, as does Kate. I’d wager if you’re reading this, you’ve been known to enjoy it from time to time as well. Porn, be it a VHS copy of “Debbie Does Dallas”, from an OnlyFans creator, or Pornhub, is a lot of things to a lot of people. What it’s not is a documentary, or useful sex ed instruction.

Porn is extremely effective at doing what it’s designed to do; separate you from your time and money. In case you don’t remember the glory days of 2400bps (or slower) dialup internet service, porn turned out to be the internet’s killer app. It was the first thing on a broad scale to monetize the web. In a very real way, porn is the web, and the web is porn.

Porn isn’t geared for subtlety or nuance. It’s much easier to convey the humiliating kick in the crotch than shared joy a couple may share when inviting a third to their bed.

To varying degrees, one piece of porn may turn you all the way on, or it may have you reaching for a barf bag. Either way, it’s a reliably bad idea to use instructionally. Well, if you’re reaching for a barf bag while watching whatever, that may well be an indicator to steer clear. Treating it as if it were a YouTube video showing you how to remove wallpaper is a mistake.

Of course, this isn’t hypothetical. I know this about porn because I’ve done it. I’ve used porn and podcasts as the opposite of what they’re really useful for. Beyond the horny in the moment stuff, porn and pods are best thought of as seed planters and conversation starters. I used them as a set of instructions and a guide for evaluating the results. I suspect I’m not alone in this.

Cuckolding is where I went the furthest off the rails with this. This going off the rails made it clear to me that cuckolding, like most things, has a range on a spectrum. It’s not a one size fits all thing.

If you’re reading us for the first time……Kate and I are a married couple in our 50’s whose relationship is Ethically Non-Monogamous (ENM). We’re swingers, our marriage is open; we have sex with other people. We’re in a committed relationship, and somewhere on the polyamorous and cuckold spectrums; Kate has a boyfriend (or two) and is a Hotwife. It’s neither of our first marriages. We met in a 12 step meeting; we’re each more than a decade sober now. If you’re curious about how this all works, we talk about our relationship in varying degrees of depth in other posts. We have an email address listed in our “about” page if you would like to contact us.

The cuckolding spectrum seems to run from a full blown Female Led Relationship (FLR) on one end, to swinging and hotwifing on the other.

I do think swinging is on this spectrum. I base that on having never, not once, observed a husband being anything other than thrilled as his wife played with the husband of another couple. At its core, this concept, this thrill, this joy, is what connects all stops along the cuck spectrum. Compersion is the new-ish word used to describe this.

FLR’s I think are closer to what the stereotypical cuckold relationship looks like. In an FLR, you see a lot of female domination (femdom) stuff that’s popular in porn. This is where hard core 24X7 power exchange exists on the cuck spectrum. I think. Kate and I don’t have any experience on this end of the continuum; it’s not our thing. From what we’ve seen in the community, talking with fellow travelers, this is a reasonably popular area of the spectrum.

What all areas on the spectrum have in common is the wife fucking someone who isn’t her husband, and everyone being on board and a fan of that.

In kind-of fairness to me, I went off the cuck rails when the world went off it’s rails; spring of 2020.

The world had ended, Crazy Tiger People (Tiger King) ruled Netflix, Kate and I were living with 5 recovering addicts and alcoholics. The tail end of the first Covid wave was also when Kate had her whirlwind fling with Lisa.

For a couple months that spring Kate and Lisa were having the best sex of their lives, and I wasn’t in the room. I was a player-ish, but more not. In and around this energy, I took ideas from porn and podcasts and ran with them.

I bought chastity cages and experimented with them. Kate and I played with denial and edging. We had a poster of two lesbians kissing hung above our bed. Lisa was probably the worst kept “secret” in our house of women. The sexual energy that spring and early summer was off the fucking hook. The connection Kate and I had was already strong, but really exploded during this time.

We’ve written in the past about the movie “Oppenheimer” and it making a great illustration of the gap between theory and reality; theory will only take you so far. Experience, doing the thing, whatever it may be, is how you go the rest of the way.

Way back on day one of Kate telling me she was going looking for a girlfriend, I took stock and gave her my response. Mind you, I was in Antarctica at the time. I told her that I was fine with her being with women, and I wanted to give her what I couldn’t give her. I can’t be a woman (or in North America at that moment) but I could give her the space to be with one.

Kate and Lisa were the sexual Manhattan Project for my I want to give her what I can’t give her theory. Those couple months were my Trinity test. It worked, really fucking well.

Kate’s solo sex with women has always been just that, solo time. Our very first ENM experience, 3 days after I returned from the ice, was me leaving Kate at the house of the woman she was going to play with. I’m wired to be cool with that, I have that space and capacity. Sure, there was some jealousy and headspace stuff to work thru. So, we worked thru it. Point being from the word go, our ENM journey had heavy elements of what would be considered cuckolding.

The Lisa Affair

In what shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, my trying to put into practice the theory as espoused by porn and to a greater extent, podcasts, didn’t work out so well.

There’s a whole saga that I’ve got about a thousand words written about that gets into this. Kate has read the draft and thought (correctly) it’s too long for this story. We’ll put that story, The John Episode, up soon. It’s an epic tale that ends by me making a fuck of myself as the result of to emulate chapter and verse what I took to be the cuckolding one true way.

Kate and I are both grateful for that experience now. It’s part of the chain of causes and conditions that happened to bring us to where we are today. Interdependence.

In true us fashion, we did the work and took a deep dive into what went wrong, as well as what went right. We realized that we like cuckolding and hotwifing conceptually. We both like and get off on Kate having sex with other people. In the John episode, we went about it the wrong way. That way was driven almost exclusively by me and my regimentatition loving brain. Turns out there is no one true way, it was about figuring out where on the cuckolding spectrum we were.

I lean submissive, Kate leans the other way. It’s not a hard lean for either of us. As a result, the power exchange typically viewed as almost essintial in cuckolding, isn’t overly important to us.

Instead, our cuckolding journey is defined by Kate not being monogamous in any way and her corresponding desire for a variety of partners.

Layered on top of that is sprinkled some of the kinkier pieces commonly associated with cuckolding; chastity, denial, sexualized humiliation, power exchange. None of the sprinkles drive the train . Rather, they’re tossed on when everyone involved is in the mood and on board.

Most times when Kate is solo with another man, I’m not sitting home panicked and in the dark, with my junk locked in a cage or to a chain. I’m playing my guitar or re-watching “The X-Files” (which BTW, what a totally awesome show. MUCH MUCH better than I remember it being, and I thought it was good back in the day) Maybe Clifford The Wonder Dog and I go for an extra long walk. I go about my business.

What do I get from all this? Every bit of the sexual gratification and energy that Kate does. You’re either bit by this bug, or you’re not. Kate’s wired with a need to fuck a variety of people, I’m wired with the need to give someone the space to do just that. Kate fucking other men is always a threesome, regardless of where I am physically, or what I’m doing.

Sure, “cuck angst”, the cocktail of emotions that tends to surface while your wife is off fucking another man, is a thing, but it’s not a huge issue now. Mostly I feel gratitude. Gratitude to be in a relationship where we learn from our mistakes, stay true to each other and ourselves, and have the courage to live with authenticity and be who we are. Gratitude for the smile on Kates face, in a sea of men, the smile that I know is for me alone.

Thanks for reading!! Be kind to yourself and others!!

Sam & Kate

PS….If you’ve made it this far, please take a moment and clap (once, or up to 50 times) for this post. It’s feedback for Kate and me, (comments and highlites are always welcome too!) and helps push the story up algorithmically. Thanks!!!