DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: So I’ve come to learn a very painful lesson that we’ll not matter what I do I don’t belong anywhere really or with any community. I love making art but you’re not stereotypical artist of being queer, softboi, thin or androgynous so I don’t belong with that community. I’m Hispanic yet I’m not of swarthy complexion not fiery or spicy or can’t even dance so even I’m in my culture I feel like an outsider. Tabletop wargaming is one hobby I enjoy yet I’m neither odd quirky enough or socially awkward like people with at my store nor am I well, queer, which again is a community I don’t feel like I belong to. I enjoy going to the gym yet I feel like I don’t belong there because I’m quite introverted and not very hurrah gym bro with big bulging muscles again. I’m a huge metalhead yet at metal head yet when I go to metal concerts I feel like an outsider or a poser because I’m not tatted up to the max nor do I wear all black, wear patches or have piercings or wear black eyeliner. I love going to conventions yet I’ve never made a single cosplay in my life and once again I feel like an outsider there.

No matter where I go or what I do I just simply do not belong there no matter how much I try. I feel fake, forced, like a poser a weed among the garden of flowers. That saying of “God give me confidence of a mediocre white man” I think of myself “hey I know that guy” he’s me (just say he slightly, autistic and has a small penis to really emphasize his mediocrity).

Even then my therapist tells me to try out therapy groups or something like that with my issues which again I feel like I simply DO NOT BELONG there. Because I’m not traumatized or a victim of abuse which most of those groups are made of. I’m autistic yet I feel like I don’t belong in autistic therapy groups because I’m on the higher functioning compared to other people who have it worst off them so I’m going stick out for the worst reasons. That’s not even getting my crippling body image issues which I have suggested therapy groups but once again I don’t belong there because mostly women’s group so am already sticking out in the worst way possible and we’ll my body image issues come from essentially eating too much compared to most which involves anorexia. It would be like saying my tummy hurts in a support group of stage 3 stomach cancer patients.

So yeah even among “outliers” and “outsiders” I’m an outsider. It makes me feel so fake and like fraud and I hate that feeling so much, it’s lonely and isolating. I just want to belong somewhere, be among like-minded people without having to second guess myself or feeling like I stand out like a sore thumb. To be among people I can happily call my peers and my community and actually have it mean something. How do it? How do I belong somewhere and actually feel like I belong there?

Sincerely,

A Vulture Among Odd Ducks

DEAR A VULTURE AMONG ODD DUCKS: This is a self-created problem, VAOD, but not in the way you think. Your isolation is primarily caused by choice, rather than by circumstance. This is actually good news, in its way. Because your isolation is self-inflicted, it means that you’re able to fix it rather easily. But in order to do that, first you have to actually address the cause that’s leading to your isolation. And that’s where you’re getting things wrong. Until you actually address the underlying issue, you’re going to continue having issues like these. You may find, for example, that even if you stop isolating yourself from the world around you, that this issue will come up in other areas.

The problem here is one of intellectual fallacies and black and white thinking. You’re acting as though you need to be an extreme example of a particular group (or, more accurately, the stereotype of a particular group) in order to be part of a community… and honestly, that’s entirely about you  and how you feel about yourself. You

Now, a lot of what you’re talking about are about how much you match a popular stereotype and treating that as whether you “deserve” to be part of the group – as though fitting into a particular look was a prerequisite. This would be true if, say, you were determined to join a group of posers who are more interested in the supposed aesthetics of a community instead of the substance, or signing up with a group of gatekeeping s--theads who want to pretend that they have some sort of ownership and authority over fandom. But you’re not. So I have to wonder why you’re focusing on the maximalist interpretation, where you have to be at the far edges of a group rather than realizing that part of the point of the community is the love of the thing that brings that community together.

Let’s take art, for example. The only requirement for entry to being an artist is… making art. Good art, bad art, marketable art, popular art, art that you couldn’t sell if your life depended on it… none of that matters. You make art? You’re an artist. Yeah, there’re lots of folks in art school who are all about the aesthetics and lifestyle of the aaaaaaahteeeest than making art, but that’s entirely different from, y’know, being an artist.

As someone who’s got a lot of creative friends – from comic artists to screen printers, writers, filmmakers, podcasters, photographers, makers, sculptors, fine artists, cosplayers and creatives all along the spectrum, I can tell you for a fact that they are as wide and as varied as you could want. Some of them are what you might call “softbois”, some are queer, some are gender-non-conforming… and many are standard-issue cisgendered hetero people that make up the majority of the population. Their gender, sexuality, neurotypicality or divergence all informed their art and the kind of art they made, sure… but none of it meant that they were or weren’t artists.

Back when I was doing a lot more drawing, I was part of a local group that would get together on Sundays at a coffeeshop downtown and just we’d just draw. We were a diverse bunch in terms of gender, lifestyle and presentation; some were goths, some were considerably more jock-like. Some were hipster-y, some were very stylish, some were very average and unremarkable in their style. Nobody was seen as “not being one of the group” because they were too butch or masc, too femme, too inked up (which, in Austin, takes some doing) or not inked enough. Nor, for that matter, was it a question of skill or talent. There were folks who are now superstar artists at Marvel and DC, or who went on to be lead artists at major game devs like Bioware, Bethesda and Arkane Austin.  Some were decent as long as they used a LOT of references and crutches (me, we’re talking about me here), and some people who could barely draw stick figures.��Some of used physical media while others drew entirely digitally. Hell, not everyone drew. Some folks would paint or do watercolor or do stuff with Super Sculpey or Fimo. If 3D printers had existed at the time, I’m sure some would be using modeling stuff to print later. The important thing was that we all came together because we liked drawing and creating and hanging out with other people who liked to draw and create.  That (and not being a screaming asshole)  was all that was necessary to be part of the community.

Being a metalhead is very similar. One of the more unifying things about the metal community is that it’s pretty wide ranging. Get five metalheads in one room and you’re going to have six opinions and seven different examples of what a metalhead looks like. Not everyone’s going to be rocking mullets and battle vests any more than everyone’s going to be wearing corpse paint, dressing like  a British leather daddy or like they just rolled out of a Ren Faire or Hall H, and not everyone’s expected to. Getting a bunch of patches and studs and putting together a battle vest isn’t a requirement, it’s just how some folks choose to express their fandom. ��(It is, however, fun as s--t and makes you look cool as hell.) 

The ethos of the metal community (and also of punk, for that matter) is “you must be cool, because if you weren’t cool, you wouldn’t be here”. 

(And for the record, that’s the official word from Henry f--kin’ Rollins)��It’s not about conformity, it’s about loving some f--king metal and rocking your face off. 

The same goes for taking part in fandom or going to conventions. Cosplayers are a subset of fandom; they’re people who express their love for their fandom by way of bringing their fandom to life – by creating costumes and props, by embodying those characters via those costumes and props, or both; not every cosplayer is a maker and not every maker also cosplays. But you’re not required to cosplay in order to be part of the fan community or to go to cons; again, the ticket to entry is being a fan. If you want to be part of the cosplayer community, then yes, participating is part of it… but even then, there’re multiple ways of participating that aren’t making or wearing the costumes. You can be a photographer, run gallery sites, organize events at cons, be someone’s handler/assistant/brute squad and so on.

But to be a fan doesn’t mean you have to be part of a particular subgroup any more than you have to follow a particular style or live a particular way. One of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten was from a friend who once asked me “If I kill you, do all the other nerds die?”, but if you were to see me out and about in my usual well-heeled-Metallica-roadie getup, you might be a bit surprised when I can bust out all the songs from the Rocky Horror Picture Show or pull the deep 80s cartoon cuts from off the top of my head. I’ve got my geek shibboleths, sure, but you have to be pretty observant to clock ‘em at a glance.

Nor, for that matter, does being a member of a particular community mean that you need to imitate the most vocal or visible examples of that community. Unless you’re trying to be a body builder or powerlifter, nobody at the gym is expecting you to be a ‘roidhead. And unless you’re going to a very specific kind of gym, most folks don’t want you to be one of those guys; they tend to be among the most obnoxious gym-goers around.

That same thing applies to, say, mental health. Yeah, you don’t want to, say, join a cancer support group when you don’t actually, y’know, have cancer, but you don’t have to be just this side of getting 5150’d to take part in group therapy. Part of the whole point of group therapy is realizing that you’re not alone, that lots of people have similar issues to yours and you’re all wrestling with similar demons and knowing this helps. The people who know the name of your demon can tell you how to handle it and vice versa.

You’re also buying into some of the same thinking that actually isolates folks who have issues similar to yours. Those body image issues you’re saying you don’t want to go to therapy for because most of the groups would be full of women? Well, the whole reason why they’re mostly full of women is because a lot of men are afraid to admit they have body image issues. This despite the fact that eating disorders and body dysmorphia is on the rise in men. It’s that feeling of “I’m afraid admit it because I’m not like the others” that causes men to isolate themselves and not only continue to perpetuate the stigma, but keeps people like you from getting the help that they both need and deserve.

Now, if most of the groups around you are specifically for anorexia, then yes, those groups may not be a good fit. But disordered eating is disordered eating; the details may vary, but the root causes tend to be the same. You may have a different relationship to food from someone who’s bulimic, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have a problem or that you don’t need support.

Another issue is that you’re falling for a form of the Fallacy of Relative Privation – the idea that your problems don’t matter because there’re other people with worse, bigger problems. Weirdly, however, the fact that someone in the world has bowel cancer doesn’t make another person’s gluten intolerance less of a problem or cause a third person’s IBS to be easier to live with. There are other neurodivergent people whose ADHD hits a lot harder than mine; that doesn’t mean that mine doesn’t and hasn’t negatively impacted my life.

But you know what happens if you go to an autism support group, despite not struggling as much as some in that group? You get support. You get access to resources, insight and suggestions on how to deal with issues related to being autistic – things that will make your life better. And if someone’s autism is more profound than yours… well, over the course of your time in that group you might be the one providing insight and advice to them.

Now here is an important question, and one that I think will really drive things home: would you gatekeep other people from saying that they’re part of those communities? Are you going to stand up and say that a friend of yours shouldn’t be going to metal concerts because they’re not tatted up enough or don’t have enough black band tees? Are you going to tell someone that they can’t call themselves an otaku because they don’t have a Jujitsu Kaisen shrine or can’t name every voice actor (dub or sub) from Demon Slayer? Do you seriously believe that someone can’t be a Critter because they haven’t been to GenCon or Emerald City or SDCC dressed as Percy or Fresh Cut Grass? Would you tell people not to call themselves an artist because they don’t look like they live in a converted Bronx warehouse and dress like Goodwill exploded all over them?

I’m going to guess that no, no you wouldn’t. You wouldn’t insist that they stand out too much or that they’re not “true” members of that community just because they don’t march in lock-step with everyone else.

So why in the 108 f--king names of God are you holding yourself to such an absurd standard? If you can see how other people – people who aren’t softbois or so many piercings that they’re more metal than man or what-have-you – can be part of a community without being a carbon copy clone of everyone else, then why are you doing that to yourself? Why does everyone else get grace that you aren’t willing to give yourself?

Sit with that for a moment. Really think about it. What is it about you that means that you aren’t allowed the same lenience, the same beneficence that you would grant to others? Why are you forbidden from entry when others who are like you are permitted? And why are you doing this to yourself?

This isn’t about not fitting in. This is about not letting yourself fit in because you think that there’s some purity test that you aren’t going to pass or that you’re not a “true” whatever. Well funny thing about “true” vs. “fake” fans or “true” vs. “fake” artists or “true” and “fake” neurodivergent people: the folks most concerned with “true” vs. “fake” tend to be the insecure s--tbags who think that the answer to their exclusion is to exclude others because they’ve never dealt with their own hurt. Those purity tests don’t actually exist and when they do, then f--k the testers; go find a better class of people to hang out with and let the losers wall themselves off until they suffocate and starve. The Sad Puppies, ‘gators, grognards, wannabe-SMOFS and all the rest can circlejerk themselves until they’re dehydrated while proclaiming themselves the true owners of whatever property; meanwhile everyone else will  give them exactly the amount of consideration they deserve.

The way you fit in with a community is being part of that community and participating in it. You don’t need to participate in the  exact same way as everyone else, nor should you. Your uniqueness and your relationship with the fandom, with the neurodiversity, with whatever, brings your own brand of specialness to that community. It may not look exactly the same as other people’s and that’s fine. Thriving communities aren’t some uniform soup where every ingredient has been homogenized and pureed and blended until they’re indistinguishable from one another. They’re a gumbo, full of many different ingredients that come together to make something bigger than the sum of their parts. If some group is insisting on perfect conformity as the price of entry, then find a better, classier group that isn’t so inbred.

Hell, you could even start your own. That’s how my Drinkin’ And Drawin’ group came about; one guy decided “hey it’d be nice if there were an opportunity for folks to hang out, make friends and make art” and by God he made it happen.

The same goes for finding support groups. The black-and-white, extremist thinking that the only groups that are valid are for the absolute worst-off only serves to isolate yourself from both community and assistance, and for no reason other than to spite yourself because f--k you, that’s why. That’s brain-meltingly, pants-on-head absurd. Stop cutting yourself off from the help you need just because you think someone else has it worse. You have problems. Support groups exist to provide support for people who have those problems. Pretending your problems aren’t really problems is just suffering for suffering’s sake, crucifying yourself for no reason other than “well someone else might have it worse than me”. Yes, someone absolutely does. And unless that person’s existence magically makes your problem vanish, then you’re still the exact sort of person that group exists to support. Your not going isn’t making things better for other people. You’re just making things harder for yourself, and for no reason other than misguided martyrdom. And trust me, the folks you think have it worse than you? They’re not begrudging you seeking support for your problems, any more than you would begrudge others for seeking help with theirs.

Stop holding yourself back. Find your support and find your people. You are artist enough. You are Hispanic enough. You are fan enough. You are autistic enough.

You. Are. Enough.

All will be well. 

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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: I had a kind of friends with benefits relationships (situationship, I know you hate it) with a very nerdy guy.

He is very cute and smart, but I guess he has a low self-esteem. On contrast I am a Jessica Rabbit kind of a woman. Moreover I am 8 years older.

Once he told me something stupid, like: we need to breakup, you deserve better.

It sounds like a polite way to turn me down. I said nothing and left. But it was so humiliating that in a couple of weeks I texted him everything that was on my mind without any censorship.

He came to my place and I scolded at him. I was furious! It ended up me slapping him. I was really very angry.

And then we had a super passionate sex.

Now I’m a bit confused. I have never been such a bitch. But my god it feels so good!!

What was it? I couldn’t find anything in the internet. Am I perverse?

Thank you, Doc.

Slap Happy

DEAR SLAP HAPPY: OK I’m going to start this with a couple of obvious disclaimers. The first is my standard disclaimer about fake letters: while I’m pretty good at catching the obvious fakes, I don’t worry overly much about if one slips through the net. Most letters may as well be fiction for everybody but the letter-writer and if there’re lessons to be gleaned or something folks are able to take away from it, then that’s going to be more important to me than someone going “ha, got ‘em” to themselves.

The second is JESUS F--KNUTS, I DON’T CARE HOW UPSET YOU ARE, HITTING SOMEONE IN ANGER LIKE THIS IS WRONG. You got really f--king lucky with the outcome, but holy hopping sheep s--t you really need to work on those anger issues like right the f--k now. Even if we leave the fact that you assaulted this guy aside (and yes, this was assault), your stewing on this for weeks before calling him over so you could yell at him is not goddamn healthy. Yeah, sometimes it takes a bit of time to process your feelings, but taking two weeks and then haranguing the dude out of the clear blue sky for his deciding that he wanted to end the relationship is not goddamn cool and not the sort of thing that someone with even a modicum of emotional intelligence thinks is a good idea. If you’re that angry about it, vent to your friends, listen to some angry music while you go for a jog, lift some weights and process your f--king feelings without hitting people.

There are healthy ways to deal with situations like this and that was not f--king it. And like I said: you got very lucky that this ended with passionate sex and not, say, an assault charge or getting hit in return.

Now, with the full acknowledgement that I am NOT approving of what you did or what happened, here’s what happened: you and this guy experienced what’s known as “misattribution of arousal”. Humans as a species are bad at understanding why we feel the way we do. Our brains take in the sensations from our bodies – a racing heartbeat, adrenaline spikes, sweaty palms, rapid breathing, an activated central nervous system – and decide how we feel based on what’s around us. Passion feels the same, physically, whether it’s anger or lust, so the two will often blend. Similarly, high levels of adrenaline often correlate to high levels of arousal, so it’s not surprising when a lot of angry passion happens to overlap with sexual passion. It’s why things that arouse the central nervous system and cardiovascular system tend to also arouse the limbic system – why you’re more likely to want to f--k after riding American Screamin’ than It’s A Small World.

So yeah, a knock-down, drag out fight leading to sex is not exactly a surprise. But your actions that lead there was deeply s--tty and you need serious anger management sessions before you haul off and find yourself in a world of s--t.

If you want sex like that again, without the risk of either being hauled in front of a judge or getting the s--t knocked out of you in return? Get your emotions under control and then find someone who’s consenting to that kind of play. Because, again: you may have been very lucky this time, but that was a f--king awful thing to do.

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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com

DEAR DR. NERDLOVE: My husband and I’ve been together for many years now (married three, together seven) and while we’ve both been somewhat vanilla our whole lives, we’ve decided that our sex lives have gotten a little boring and routine and we’ve been branching out to spice things up. 

In addition to a lot of the usual advice about date nights and breaking up old routines, we’ve decided we’re both interested in threesomes. After a lot of talking about it, fantasizing about it and just getting each other turned on about the idea, we’ve started actually taking steps to make it happen. We’ve got a joint account on a couple of specific apps and we’ve made tentative overtures to some friends of ours who we suspect that would be into it. 

Now we have a couple of likely candidates and while I’m incredibly excited for this to happen, the reality of it is making me nervous. What if our lucky third decides they like one of us more than the other? How do I keep from getting jealous or freaking out watching someone else getting that intimate with my husband? What is the etiquette for afterwards? Do we just hand them a towel and a bottle of water and say “see you?” Is it ok to see a third individually as well as together? 

I’m looking forward to this, but I’m also starting to get the jitters too. We both want this to happen and not be a huge mistake. What do we do? 

Three’s A Party

DEAR THREE’S A PARTY: Before I get to the actual advice part of this, let me congratulate you and your husband on not just freaking out about your sex life going the way that pretty much all relationships, but taking steps to keep the sexy adventures going. Trying new things, taking risks and not falling for the trap that marriage and settling down is the end of adventure and exploration are all part of how you keep a long term relationship strong and vibrant.

Now when it comes to threesomes, you want to take things carefully. There’re a lot of mistakes that couples make by accident in no small part because, quite frankly, their ideas about threesomes come from porn, where they just “happen”. When you have a script and a director, it’s a lot easier for things to be “spontaneous” because the eventual outcomes are baked in. In the real world, this has the potential to blow up in your faces – and not in the fun, sweaty ways you’re hoping for.

One of the biggest issues is simply finding that guest star. My general advice if you are looking for a third is to start with exes that you’re on good terms with. Because there’s that pre-existing relationship with them, they’re a known quantity, and it’s often easier to discuss boundaries and limits and what to expect than it is with someone you just met at a bar or on an app. The chemistry you (or your husband) have with the ex also helps with any initial awkwardness and smooths over the potential for someone pulling a move that the other person just doesn’t care for.

My second choice would be to hire a sex worker to be your third, rather than going to the apps. Mixed-gender couples have an easier time hiring someone than finding a potential unicorn, even on apps designed specifically for kink, polyamory, group sex and so on.

(Gay and bi men tend to have an easier time finding thirds simply because it’s easier for people who sleep with men to find someone who’s down to clown.) 

Hiring an independent escort cuts out a lot of the worry, simply because they’re there to perform a service and leave when everything is done. It can often feel a lot easier to talk about expectations or who gets how much attention when the third is there to play a specific role, whereas telling a stranger – or even a friend – what is or isn’t on the table can feel uncomfortable and awkward. The fact that the sex worker is there to do a job also cuts down on any post-coital anxiety like “will this person be a threat to our relationship” or “what do we do if we see them in public?” or any of the other common worries.

The next thing is making sure that you, your husband and your potential guest not just have chemistry, but that you are all on the same page regarding things like testing and safety, boundaries and so on. If your guest for your upcoming threesome is from the apps, then I’d recommend that you, your husband and your potential guest star meet up on a date for a vibe check – and this part is crucial – on a day when you are not going to go back and f--k. You want to get a feel for whether the three of you will vibe together, whether there’s chemistry and if all of you are going to play well together. Considering the potential stakes, you want to do this when you have time to let things percolate, rather than feeling the pressure of “well, we’re gonna do this tonight, so let’s get through this part and get straight to it.”

Part of this due diligence meeting should be about laying some ground rules – ones that you and your husband should work out between yourselves in advance. One of the things that often helps people who are having a bout of nerves before their first threesome is to have some guidelines about what is or isn’t permitted with the third. This includes what you both expect: is this supposed to be your husband and your guest star lavishing all the attention on you, on your husband, both of you teaming up on the guest, or what. Being up front about what you expect, how you want it to play out and what is and isn’t permitted (and for whom) takes away a lot of the uncertainty and worry. It’s a lot easier to relax and be in the moment when you know what to expect, rather than assuming it’ll all be fine and getting an unpleasant surprise at the worst possible moment.

One rule of thumb that’s often helpful is to take full penetration off the table entirely and just let your first time together be an extended makeout session. It’s a lot easier to process any weird feelings about seeing someone going down on your husband (or your husband seeing them going to town on you) when you know there’re limits and lines that aren’t going to be crossed. If all of you have a good time and you’re amenable to another date, then you can escalate things.

I’d still recommend that penetration be off the table (or at least, reserved for you and your husband as the couple in this scenario) until you’re both sure you’re going to be ok with it. This may mean a couple of play dates before y’all are ready to share; that’s fine. It’s better to take things slow and let the excitement build than to go all gas, no brakes and deal with the potential repercussions when someone suddenly gets in their feels about things.

Speaking of which: there is almost always a part in threesomes where it becomes a twosome for a bit. It’s as much about logistics and the limits of who’s got how many bits and the ability to multitask as it is about one person REALLY getting into the other. Ideally this happens in such a way that everyone feels like they’re getting roughly equitable amounts of attention, but that’s hard to organize in the moment. It’s important to a) realize that this is likely to happen and b) not to freak out about it. You don’t necessarily want to insist that they include you (or you two include the other) immediately, but also you don’t want to let it go on for so long that folks start feeling hurt or neglected or left out. If one person is feeling left out, it’s ok to gently say “hey, don’t forget I’m here…” and let things get centered as a threesome instead of a couple with a third wheel in the room.

I would also say that whatever rules and boundaries you agree to in advance are sacrosanct. There is no changing them in the middle of things, no matter what. Doing so is a very good way of guaranteeing that someone is going to get upset, even if it feels like a good idea at the time. If, in the middle, y’all decide that you would like penetration to be an option, plan a follow-up date where it’ll be allowed. Otherwise, you all have a plan and there should be no changes from what is or isn’t allowed.

On the night of, I’d recommend keeping drinks and intoxicants to a minimum. Leaving aside potential performance issues and the risk of someone being too intoxicated to give meaningful consent, staying sober helps prevent you from making some poor choices in the moment. People tend to make a lot of dumb calls when sex is involved. Don’t up the risk by having impaired judgement on top of all the f--k chemicals surging.  

Another thing to work out in advance is how you’re going to handle things afterwards. One of the worst things that can happen in a threesome is when the couple treats the third like a toy instead of a person. While I know it can feel a bit awkward in the post-orgasmic clarity, you don’t want to just hand them their clothes and push them to the door. This is a horrible thing to do to a friend or a stranger. I’d recommend having a plan in advance about what happens afterwards and making the arrangements in advance. An ex, for example, might stay over in the guest room, if you have one. Or you may all agree to get a hotel room so you don’t necessarily have the awkwardness of a stranger in your space. Again, these are things you should discuss with the third when you’re having your vibe check date, so that this doesn’t come as a surprise afterwards and someone gets the short end of the stick as everyone scrambles to figure out what to do now.

Consider how you would want to be treated if you were the third. At the bare minimum, I’d recommend factoring some time to clean up, decompress, maybe have a snack and some water before calling it a night and calling them an Uber or making up the couch (or possibly letting them have the hotel room while you head home).

Even if you’re hiring a sex worker to be your guest – where the entire point is to come and go – they’re still a person, not a robot. Being courteous, considerate and respectful is important. And be sure to tip well; it’s just polite and it’ll help for a better client/provider relationship if you decide to hire them again in the future.

You don’t say if you’re poly or non-monogamous or not, so I would err on the side of not playing separately, either before or afterwards. If, after a successful threesome, you or your husband talk things through and agree, that’s one thing. But if you don’t already have a baseline of experience with non-monogamy, I’d suggest holding off; the risks of someone tripping over their junk and causing problems is just too high.

Now I know this sounds like a lot of groundwork in advance of what is supposed to be a fun adventure, but trust me: preparation makes everything better. It’s a lot easier to relax into the moment and enjoy things when you don’t have that nagging voice of anxiety in the back of your skull or the uncertainty of how to handle X, Y or Z. The more you take care of in advance, the more fun you can have when the time comes, simply because you don’t have to think about it.  

Oh and one more thing: one of the issues people often run into when they’re planning a threesome or a swap or other group sex activities is actually getting things started. If you find that you all are standing around talking and not actually doing anything, I’d recommend using the magic words “Hey, I’ve got an idea…” and then suggesting either that the clothes start coming off or you all adjourn to the bedroom.

Good luck.

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Please send your questions to Dr. NerdLove at his website (www.doctornerdlove.com/contact); or to his email, doc@doctornerdlove.com