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Living in Sin: Breakage
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Jen Sincero is a musician, sexpert, and the author of the bestselling book, The Straight Girl’s Guide To Sleeping With Chicks and the semi-autobiographical novel, Don’t Sleep With Your Drummer. She currently hosts a weekly sex talk radio show called Dr. Happypants on killradio.org.
Living in Sin is her weekly advice column for LA's sexually curious, confused and constipated. Got a question for Jen? Ask her. We promise to be discreet (all questions will be posted anonymously).
Dear Jen,
I'm a 24 year old girl in an extraordinarily happy relationship. My problem is that lately I've been fighting the desire to mess around with other men. I've been in serious relationships since the age of 15, and even though I love my boyfriend, I'm afraid that if I marry him without ever exploring being single, I'll be unhappy. It seems that the better and happier my relationship gets, the more and more tempted I am by other men. What is wrong with me?
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I was hiking the other day and I tripped, fell, and broke my arm. As I was lying there face down in the dirt, I was musing over how quickly your life can change in a nannosecond (and wondering if anyone had witnessed my Three Stooges moment).
They put this huge splint thing on me, it's like walking around with a warehouse on my arm, and I no longer have any feeling in my neck from the strap of my sling. But as uncomfortable as it is, for the past two days, me and my elephant arm have been treated like queens by the nice people of Los Angeles -five different people at Trader Joes offered to help push my cart, my neighbor comes over every morning to help with my bra, and when stopped by a guy with a puppy on a leash, I was the cute and popular one.
As I sit here typing with one finger, I fear that my hopes of making a brilliant analogy between our situations may be far-fetched. And that I'm going to have to own up to the fact that I'm really just avoiding answering you because I don't have a great answer. Life is short? Nothing is certain? Relationships and arms can be broken, but after some pain and excitement, they can also heal?There is nothing wrong with you - who doesn't panic when the door of opportunity is slowly closing before her eyes? You're just in a humdinger of a predicament, but a very common predicament I might add. And I can't advise you on what to do, only on what you should think about, because this is a big decision that only you can make.
I suggest you think about the big sexcapade and what it means - titillation, mystery, adventure, uncertainty, sexual enlightenment, exciting new penis shapes, maybe a case of the crabs, etc. And then sit very quietly, clear your mind of chatter, and try to connect with how it would really feel to experience it. Then weigh that against the possibility of losing your boyfriend over it.
If it turns out to be that important to you, the next step is to tell him how you feel. And who knows, maybe he'll feel the same way? I have a couple lucky friends who went off on a feeding frenzy for a year and came back to find their boyfriends on bended knee (both are still happily married). I have another friend who refused to let her now-husband experiment, and he seems to have gotten over the urge. I've also seen it break people up. You can't predict what will happen, but you can't lose if you follow your truth. So you just have to get mighty real with yourself and figure out what that is.Got a question for Jen? Ask her.
Previous Sins.
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