You're listening to a Stranger podcast, www.Thestranger.com.

Hey, everybody. This is Dan Savage, and this is the Savage Lovecast, the weekly out loud version of my sex advice column, Savage Love.

The phone number here, if you want to record a question for a future podcast, 206, 201, 2720,

and you download this swiftly and expertly every week at www.

the stranger.com slash savage.

Hey, Dan, I'm kind of into mild bondage, but I have a weird problem.

I've never been able to get into it with anybody I really love, like a boyfriend or right now my husband.

Only with guys I casually dated, do you have any advice for how I can feel more comfortable letting the sex and the emotions join

together? Thanks.

Often when people have trouble doing the things that turn them on with a lover, but no trouble

doing those things with a casual partner, it's because they still, you know, however hip you may think you are,

however cool you may think you are with your fetishes and kinks and sexual interests,

you have some sort of shame about it and hang up about it.

With somebody you don't care about, you don't care if they judge you,

you don't care if they think less of you for being into these things. You don't care if they dump you over it because you

don't care about them because it's just a casual thing. With your husband, even if, you know, your

conscious brain knows that he loves you and that he's going to give it a try for you and then he wants

to make you happy, subconsciously, you think that by being the, you know,

sex-craced bondage freak that you are, that you'll be on, that that somehow makes you

unworthy of love, that that somehow is repulsive or should be repulsive to him. And you risk,

you feel that, you know, really letting go with somebody that you care about,

by doing that, you risk losing them. You risk losing their love and affection and presence in

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