SAVAGE LOVE: The Roomies

About a year ago I moved in with childhood best friend and his husband. We’re all in our mid-thirties. It’s been going great, and I consider the three of us to be fairly close. About a month ago, the husband and I stopped at the local pharmacy on the way home, which is how our various medications wound up in a pile on the table. While trying to dig my meds out from said pile, I noticed one of his prescriptions that I know can either be used as PrEP or as treatment for HIV. (I work in medicine.)

Through conversations with my friends/roommates, I know they are in a closed relationship, so I believe this means the husband has HIV and is treating it. I shouldn’t say anything to either of them, right? I don’t consider it any of my business (he’s treating it! I’m not sleeping with either of them! they’re monogamous!), but I could imagine a world where one or both of them is anxious about my reaction if I were to find out. I’m close to childhood bestie’s family, who I’m 99% sure don’t know. (I would never, ever tell them, of course.) What say you, Dan? Do I take this to the grave?

Getting Real About Viral Eyeful

This is none of your business… which you claim to know, GRAVE, and yet here you are wondering what, if anything, you should do.

Nothing. You should do nothing. Absolutely nothing.

There’s a reason this guy gets those meds and, again, his husband surely knows what that reason is. Maybe your bestie’s husband was HIV+ before they met and he has an undetectable viral load (thanks to these medications) and your bestie is not at any risk of acquiring HIV. (Undetectable = untransmissible.) Or maybe your childhood best friend is HIV+ and on meds and has an undetectable viral load and his husband takes PrEP for an added layer of protection. Or maybe they’re open but they don’t feel comfortable talking with you about it — not all open gay couples are out to their straight friends about being non-monogamous — and they take PrEP daily or PrEP on demand to protect themselves on those rare/special occasions when they fuck around with other guys. (Birthdays, anniversaries, Pride Month, Lent, Labor Day, Arbor Day, Memorial Day, Tuesdays, Thursdays, the Oscars, Emmys, Tonys, etc.)

It’s also possible the most important people in their lives know why they’re taking those telltale meds but they didn’t feel comfortable telling you. And seeing as your first impulse after spotting those meds was to wonder whether you needed to INFORM THEIR FAMILIES that one or the other or both of them might be HIV+ or that they might be one of those gay couples that define monogamy as “we only have sex with each other and only have sex with other people together,” GRAVE, maybe they were right not to tell you.

I know, I know: you immediately ruled out telling their families, GRAVE, and you deserve credit for that. (Self-regulation for the win!) But the fact that you had to had to rule it out — the fact that you had squelch the impulse — is a little concerning. Not an indictment of your character or anything! But if your first thought when you found evidence your childhood these guys might be fucking other people was, “Do their mothers know?”, then they might not be telling you things they don’t want their moms to know for a good reason.

If there’s something this couple wants to you know about their health or their sex life, they’ll tell you. In the meantime, GRAVE, you can prove yourself worthy of their trust by respecting their privacy — and for roommates, respecting privacy often means not bringing up something you only learned about because you’re roommates. And since there’s a good chance your friend’s husband clocked you clocking his meds, GRAVE, if you do the right thing here — if you demonstrate discretion and chill — he might feel comfortable opening up to you about his health and their sex life. But let him initiate that conversation.

I’m on SSI in low-income housing. I’m a 54-year-old man and still a virgin. Since I was a child, I have always liked women’s legs and feet. I love pantyhose. I masturbate every night to what I hear and see about that, especially Tiffani Thiessen. I was worried that I had scarred the underside of my penis, but I’ve been given a clean bill of health by a specialist. With these things in mind, I think a nurse is my best fit since they’re sexual and they can examine me. There was actually an ad on Craigslist a few years ago about rooming with two nurses. Ideally, I’d like to find a similar living situation in the Dallas area, due to the milder climate. Additionally, I think Dallas offers the best chance for me to find a job that fits my educational background and get off SSI. (Finding a relationship while poor or indigent is impossible.) While I would obviously have heavy sexual motives regarding nurse roommates, I don’t want to hurt anyone or ask them to commit malpractice. Perhaps rooming with a nurse or two who works in research, or some other non-invasive field would be a safer bet? If you know someone who could help me, please let me know.

Needs Understanding Roommates Sexual Efforts

Only you can help you, NURSE, and disabusing yourself of this delusion — that hot nurses enjoy examining the penises of 54-year-old virgins — is the single most important thing you can do to help yourself.

If you want to live in Dallas, if you have decent job prospects in Dallas, by all means, NURSE, move to Dallas. Get a job, get your own place, and get roommates if you need help making rent. But springing your kinks on a new roommate or roommates — whether they’re nurses or not — won’t get you what you want. Your roommates aren’t going to examine your dick just because you asked. Your roommates are going to box up your shit, put it on the porch, and have the locks changed while you’re at work.

Here’s a better plan: get a job, get a place, get a couple of roommates to cut your living expenses — roommates you wouldn’t be tempted to hit on — and save your money to hire a sex worker. There are plenty of sex workers out there who would happily wear pantyhose and pretend to be nurses while they examine your cock for signs of wear and tear.

I’m a 50-something penis owner with a factory-installed attraction to diapers. As a committed ABDL switch, I’ve had the luxury of building my own special clothing collection and a nursery, and I occasionally visit the most extraordinary Mommy Dom. (Shout out to Mistress Morgana in SF!) For the past five years, I’ve also played online daddy to a very cute adult baby girl who’s my part-time slutty piglet. I’ve arrived at a point where my morning wood distresses me and ejaculating to relieve it makes me unhappy all day. I find the idea of owning smaller, less excitable genitals very appealing. Can you please offer some more detailed advice, other than suggesting that a cage will cause damage to one’s erectile tissue?

Sad About Manhood

Read the rest of this week’s column here! And this week on the Lovecast: 

Have we reached peak poly drama? A queer woman has been open with her male live-in partner, having lots of great sex with him and others. The problem? His cat won’t pay any attention to her. She doesn’t feel jealous of the humans in their lives, but this cat!

A widowed 81 year-old woman has taken up with her 56 year-old gardener. But he went and confessed to his priest who told him to cut it out. Should she try to convince him to keep loving her up?

On the Magnum, enter Eric Williams, comedian and host of That’s A Gay Ass Podcast. Dan torments his very homosexual guest by asking him to answer a question about cunnilingus. Also discussed: What made them gay? And here’s a PSA: Please leave the actors of Heated Rivalry alone. LISTEN HERE!