Chucklef*cker seeks reply-guy, harmless simp, or chronic story-liker

"I can’t comprehend that these gross guys don’t direct their grossness at me."

Hello, Sex Happens readers! I’m stand-up comedian, writer, and actress Ivy Wolk, and this is the tenth installment of my monthly column “Born Sexy Yesterday.” I will be advising the Substack community on all things sex, love, and romance, from the perspective of someone who is new at — and quite bad at — all three. What I lack in tangible experience I make up for in verve and intuition, so hopefully I don’t steer you in the wrong direction. I’ll try my hardest not to ruin your life. You can trust me. All I know is that I don’t know nothin’...

Q: I have a huge submission kink, and it’s basically my lifestyle. I’m my boyfriend’s pet, and he pays for everything, though I do serve at a restaurant on the weekends, so I have a little bit of my own money. But the relationship I fear is beginning to sour; I feel neglected in a lot of ways, but whenever I bring it up, he just says how much he does for me, meaning financially. I fear that my kink could be getting in the way of my better judgment. I’ve stayed with him through thick and thin because of how good it feels to be loyal, submit, and not worry about it. Like a dog. I’m scared that I’m holding myself back, but I also love being this way. I don’t want to be a stray! Who will take care of me if I decide to embark on finding a new owner? It’s just all too overwhelming, and so I feel stuck. I don’t want to let go of being provided for, but I also don’t want to accept subpar treatment! I truly don’t know what to do. Love you, girl.

A: Dear Hit Dog Hollers,

The latter half of my childhood was spent in a similar, though less BDSM-oriented situation, with my now-former stepfather being the breadwinner and having sole financial control over my mother and me — an arrangement he agreed upon and suggested but held over our heads — until he resented his own idea so much he kicked us out when I was a junior in high school. We had to rebuild from a monetary zero. It is a really scary place to come out from underneath, especially when you have been conditioned to feel as though financial destitution is a far worse option than emotional fluctuation or the arduous exploration of the possibility of unconditional love.

Being poor sucks, and is really scary, but being financially abused and remaining in a dynamic in which you have no autonomy and no potential for autonomy might be worse. You need a sense of self and an identity outside of your BDSM dynamic. Such things can only be safely mounted when you come into them with a strong foundation, a place to land, and a sense that if it all disappeared tomorrow you would still have yourself to fall back on. I’m not a kinky person, so I do not know how entrenched in this a person can get, nor how hard it may actually be to disentangle your identity from what gets you off. Still, I have felt the effects of being privy to a romantic dynamic in which unequal financial standing was used as a sort of Sword of Damocles… it is not healthy and ultimately may be more corrosive to your psyche than being broke and figuring it the fuck out for a while on your own terms. You can get the submission and loyalty itch scratched by someone who wants to feel like they are on equal terms with you, who knows how to separate personhood from power play, which it seems in your current relationship neither of you knows how to do. You are in for a world of hurt and instability on more levels than just financial if you choose to stay in something like this. Common sense seems to be peeking through your reticence here. Please follow that lead. I’m sure a world exists where you can be a sovereign person and a puppygirl, but you have to have actual boundaries and identity outside of subservience to find it. I promise that having both will make the sexual stuff feel so much better.

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Q: I’m 19 years old, and I met my boyfriend on Twitter when I was 18, and he was 20. Obviously, I know that’s probably not the best and really scary, but he has been the best boyfriend I’ve ever had, and I lost my virginity to him when we met for the first time in Paris (I’m from NYC; he’s from London). It’s been almost a year of dating, and since the first time we met, our relationship has gone kinda downhill. He’s not abusive or mean, just really depressed, but it’s starting to feel like he doesn’t like me anymore — when he swears he does.

He stopped saying I love you to me, and left me on “delivered” for 3 to 5 hours, and told me he started doing heroin (which I believe he stopped, but I have really no way of knowing, honestly). We have seen each other 3 more times since the first time, and my family knows him now. But I realized I don’t know much about him at all. I don’t know his parents, or any of his friends, or his school, or really anything about his life. He said he’s not close with either parent and has no friends, but it still makes me feel left out. He doesn’t see the purpose of meeting my friends or family because “the relationship is about us, not them,” but I still think it’s important to know the people your partner loves, and I also get a deep feeling like he’s gonna kill me for some reason. I know my submission is all over the place, and I’m sorry. I don’t really know what I expect as an answer, but I guess I want to know that it’s not completely crazy and that I should just try to communicate better with him.

A: Dear Avatar,

Oh honey. This ain’t working. Trust me, speaking from experience: when a man is allergic to integrating his life with yours in any real way, it is indicative of an avoidant and impenetrable tendency that will worsen the longer you let this go on. If he can easily sequester you away from a life he may live beyond you, he is also capable of narrowing the scope of what it is the two of you can be together. I hate hearing that you have an ominous, violent feeling about him. I don’t like this situation at all. A long-distance internet relationship with a heroin addict is like trying to fuck the wind! He is water through your fingers! None of this is worth the turmoil. He will fold in on himself until he is nothing, and you can get sucked into the nothingness, too.

You are too young to resign yourself to this. Take what you’ve learned and use it to fuck someone local who may be attentive and not spooky and shrouded in so much mystery. Men like to stay mysterious so you can always be chasing them in the hopes that you can mine further for more, but have you considered there may be nothing to mine at all? You’re hoping to scratch the shell until it opens itself up for you little by little, but it may be a fucking cavern inside. Don’t make him deeper or more complicated than he needs to be. Imbue that empathy and patience unto yourself — view yourself with the totality and depth you view him with and use it to build a life and love that is better and not so confusing.

You can feel for him; you can sympathize with his depression and addiction and evasiveness, but that sympathy does not necessitate being a part of it at all. This is no good. Separate yourself from the faraway bad boy fantasy you’ve turned him into. You are flattening yourself and the breadth of what your life could be by letting him be the thing you speculate about… go have big ideas about things that can expand and reward you and leave this vacuous scrub in the dust.

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Q: I do comedy in a pretty progressive scene, yet my peers are always complaining that male comedians are these dogs that are constantly trying to fuck them. They all have reply-guy comedians who are these massive pests, harmless simps, or chronic story-likers. I’m not saying I wish I had their problems, but why hasn’t that been my problem? It’s their constant problem. I know a female comic who said she’s always hurt to find out that someone she thought was her friend is trying to fuck. And it’s not that I’m confused about how feeling deceived could be hurtful; I’m confused about how it’s experienced often enough for her? Every male comic who is trying to be my buddy is just trying to be my buddy. I don’t want them to fuck me, but why don’t they even want to fuck me? I can’t comprehend that these gross guys don’t direct their grossness at me. I’m young and hot! I have fat tits! If they’re such desperate dogs, what the fuck does that make me?

A: Dear Chucklefucker,

This is a blessing, but I understand your offense. I moved to New York to do standup when I was 19 and thought that, on account of being a new face and a tight young thing, it would be like throwing steak to a pack of wolves. To this day, I have never fucked or even kissed a male comedian, a fact that would have potentially disappointed a younger me so much so that I may have never even hit the stage at all, but now I only feel lucky and unscathed.

I love male comedians! They are my greatest friends and collaborators! But ultimately sex is not their utility. I don’t know why they zero in on some chicks and leave the rest behind, but truly that is God’s protection. It was so exciting to be young and new and to feel like I could fall face first into a vat of boys who only existed as ideas or representations to me, but now that I know them as real people, none of them are anyone I’d want to fuck. It’s probably not about you: I feel like female comics who only fuck male comics feel like they too must come into it as a representation or idea rather than as a whole person (which is often a trap most women impose upon themselves when fucking men). You may just be too much yourself for it to be conducive to people feeling comfortable throwing a wrench in the milieu by having what is basically a workplace relationship. These people are your coworkers, ultimately, and you will probably be in proximity to most of them for a very long time. It is so much better to leave that stone unturned. Fuck people who don’t have to see you perform to silence! Keep the stage sacred!

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