Q: I’m a lesbian and my girlfriend is bi. I’ve read your column and listened to your podcast for a long time, Dan, and I always thought I’d be fine with having a partner ask me about being monogamish. Then my girlfriend of about a year and a half told me she wants to see what other women are like. She says the thought of me sleeping with other people turns her on but the prospect of her sleeping with other people only makes me nervous.
By which I mean to say, there’s risk in every relationship and it’s trust that helps us manage our fears about those risks. So if you trust your girlfriend to honor the terms you’ve agreed to—DADT, fucks are OK dates are not, the other women know she’s taken—and you trust she’s telling the truth when she says she loves you and doesn’t want to lose you, FEARS, then you should choose to believe her. Just like a person in a monogamous relationship chooses to believe their partner when they say they won’t fuck anyone else (even though they might) and won’t leave them for anyone else (even though they could), you can choose to believe your girlfriend will honor the rules you’ve laid out.
A: I’m on your side, COME. I’ve been fighting a lonely battle against “cum,” “cumming,” and (shudder) “cummed” for as long as I’ve been writing this column. I confess to having sinned a few weeks ago when I used the term “cumblebrag.” But in my defense, that was obviously a pun and—for the record—my one-time use of “cum” in the service of a joke should not be construed as an endorsement of “cum.” (The eye stumbles over “comeblebrag,” so it wouldn’t have worked to use “come.”) As I’ve written before, we don’t have alternate spellings for other words that have both sexual and nonsexual meanings. Seeing as we don’t “suk dik” or “eet pussee,” there’s no earthly reason why we should “cum” on someone else or be “cummed” upon ourselves.
