Ask Beastly: Don’t Be a Bad Guy

My name is Alexander Cheves, but fuckboys call me Beastly. 

I write about sex, nightlife, and gay culture. I wrote a bestselling book about my life as a sex worker, which you can buy here. Visit my LinkTree to see all my books, events, and other things. 

This blog is a safe place to send your darkest fantasies and toughest questions on sex, love, and life. Email askbeastly@gmail.com or use the contact form. 

This site is supported by readers — like you! There are no ads or sponsored posts. That would feel wrong to me. Please visit my Patreon to support my work. Supporters get special treats 😉

Hi Alexander, I need advice. I’ve been with my partner for 13 years, and married for 8. We met when I was 25. In my teens and early 20s, I explored my sexuality and did it all. I grew up in a broken home and was once homeless. I thought I wanted security and monogamy. Unfortunately, I’m a serial cheater. I can’t count at this point. He caught me once, but we worked it out. The best sex is with my husband and he has no idea what I have been up to. I sometimes feel like he knows. However, on a recent business trip, I got wild. Because he doesn’t trust me and is jealous, he didn’t want me to go. I went anyway because it was a great opportunity. I logged onto Grindr from my hotel room and many guys were within 0 feet of me on. I had group sex with guys from the app. I was fucked by one guy and sucked two more. My top used some of another guy’s semen as lube. I think I fell in love with one of the guys the moment he walked into the room. We locked eyes and instantly connected. He watched the whole thing and we made out. After leaving the room, we continued to talk and numbers were exchanged. Afterward, I was on cloud nine. It’s like I was high from this extreme sexual experience. Positive, confident, and happy, I felt GOOD. Days later I started feeling low. Even though there is no future with the guy I really connected with, since he lives on the West Coast and I am married, I’m very curious about him. I would like to know more about him and fuck him like crazy. I also have my current relationship to consider. Do I leave? He would not be supportive at all. I also want to remain safe/healthy. Does the high I felt after the wild sex mean this is how I should live? Am I bipolar or a sex addict? What should I do? Is my husband’s ideal of what I should be, making me smaller? Can I have everything?

– Terrible gay husband

P.S. I have a few things to add. I have recently attended a sexual addict’s anonymous meeting. I like the idea of getting help but after reading literature and hearing others stories at the meeting I’m just not sure if I am actually an addict. Maybe I am but maybe there’s more to it? Like maybe I’m a narcissist and want all the attention? My husband traveled to see his mother in South America last week which gave me many opportunities to play. I have a friend who I met on Grindr a year or so ago. I had him take me to my first bath house which was amazing. I have since returned for a second time on my own. In the bathhouse setting, I have suddenly become a top which I really like the idea of. Side note; Maybe I can be my husband’s bottom and fuck everyone else? I also had the chance to visit an adult video place with stalls and rooms and theaters and played there. All of these things have been things I’ve always wanted to do. My “friend” also told me about doxy pep and gave me a few pills to take after these risky encounters. When my husband returned we had amazing sex. Like mind mind-blowing but I still want to go and cruise. If my husband ever found out, everything around me would come crashing down which is really scary. Friends, family, a religious community, our house, our pets. I need to stop but then I’m not sure if I want to stop. Do I like all this risk? At this point, I am living two lives. He doesn’t know I take prep, he doesn’t know I get tested all the time, he doesn’t know I’ve done any of these wild things. Also, it’s nice that this guy from Grindr has become my friend and helped me experience some great sexual adventures. But he’s probably more like an enabler at this point. He’s also married but his husband knows. I have gotten to talk to him about the possibility of this being an addiction and he has also gone to SAA meetings in the past. So it was nice hearing someone else’s experiences dealing with all this sex. He has also offered to try and seduce my husband through social media. Really risky. My thoughts behind that is, that maybe it will open my husband’s eyes to think outside the sexual box. I’ve also recently gotten a Viagra prescription which was amazing to take before the bathhouse. And it probably helped me become the bathhouse top. I never needed it but I would always get nervous and that would affect my erections in these very public situations. My friend helped me with that. Anyway, I have really been on this big sexual jaunt since I went on my business trip a couple of months ago. I basically fell in love with one of the guys. Now I’ve moved on and still want more. All the while I have this amazing guy at home. I should also mention he doesn’t trust me. For good reason. We have cameras throughout the house and GPS locators on my car and phone. But I’ve found a way around these things. Sorry for this explosion of information but I wanted you to know. Thanks, Alex for everything you do.

Hey TGH,

Yeah, you should leave him. And tell him the truth.

This reads like an internal monologue you are having with yourself. You are not asking me these questions. You are self-debating, and I am not certain you want a solution. 

What do you hope I will say? Most people who ask a question about a relationship have an idea of the answer they want. Do you want approval? I don’t approve of unethical non-monogamy (cheating), which you are doing, but you know that if you have read this blog before. Do you want me to say yes, you’re being a bad husband? You are. Do you want a fix that gives you a wild sex life with a husband who won’t allow it? There isn’t one, at least not an ethical one.

You can’t “have it all” if having it all requires lying — not without being a bad person and bad partner. There is, however, a path to having it all with honesty and integrity and being a good partner. That is a life that ethically non-monogamous people have (like me). But your current relationship is not really a candidate for that. Ethically non-monogamous relationships require trust and communication, things that are absent in this one. You have already given him ample reason not to trust you, and so have likely spoiled this relationship’s chance of becoming open or “monogamish”. Maybe you can do it in the next one (tip: don’t lie).

Even if he could learn to trust you again after you tell him the truth — as you must do — he would have to be comfortable with an open relationship, and it sounds like he is not. To be ethically non-monogamous, you must prioritize constant, transparent communication so everyone feels safe, and right now you do not seem very fit for that task. 

You are not stumbling blind, unsure what to do. You have calculated how to not get caught and not stop. You know you must test for STIs so you don’t give one to him, so you do. You know what you are doing. You know you are being a bad husband. Sometimes we do bad things because we cannot imagine another way to do them. That doesn’t necessarily make us bad people, but these actions — lying, manipulation, deceit — are bad.

I am tired of the “sex addict” claim. It’s an easy way to eschew blame and responsibility. “It’s not my fault, I’m sick.” Yes, there are people with legitimate sexual compulsions, but these are people who compulsively masturbate in public or can’t stop groping strangers. They develop compulsions that often require therapy or institutionalization.

I think most people who call themselves sex addicts are just people who shame, judge, and misunderstand their own desires and behaviours, and instead of trying to understand them, they pathologize them and call them an illness. You are probably not a sex addict. I think most people who call themselves sex addicts are not. You have desires, and if you were not in the relationship you are in, satisfying them would be totally fine. You are allowed to have a wild, adventurous sex life. I do. The only thing you are doing wrong is lying about it to someone who trusts you to not do exactly that — who trusts you to take care of him.

Your behaviour does not sound like clinical sexual compulsion. I don’t believe you really think your world would come crashing down if he were to find out. If it would be that bad, I doubt you’d risk it. I suspect some part of you sees all this for what it is: a sloppy transition out of marriage into single life, and you feel guilty for how you’ve done it. Sloppy or not, it is a transition out of your current relationship. Transitions are hard, but they are necessary.

Transition periods can inspire bad behaviour — just ask anyone who has ever been in a long, drawn-out, messy breakup. We often cannot explain even to ourselves why we cling to futureless relationships while chasing new fun. I have known so many people who hold on to failing relationships while simultaneously doing the very things they know will eventually end their relationships for good — who know that, at some point, these realities will collide. Your partner is on a collision course with your other life, your “secret” life. And, sorry babe, but it’s no secret. 

He knows. He is probably denying it in his mind or trying to look the other way, but he knows. If he doesn’t, he will. It is impossible to keep cheating without a partner finding out. He will, or he already has. He deserves better, and you know that. The only right action — the only way to love him — is to tell the truth. 

He will probably leave you, as he should. If he doesn’t, you should end it. Because this relationship is not in your best interest or his. He is a safety blanket, someone comfortable and familiar who you’ve built a life with, and it may be scary to imagine life without him. But look at what you are doing: you are tired of security. Part of you wants your life to be shaken up, to rattle the calm of your adulthood. Many adults with comfortable lives, stable marriages, and solid careers want that: to have the rug ripped out from under them, to pack it all up, drive away, and be young again, back in that time of sleeping on friends’ sofas and figuring it out. That is exciting, and you probably want something like that: your life ruined to make way for something more free. I think that’s what you need: freedom to grow, explore, and play.

I don’t care how good the sex with him is. It’s not working. Love him enough to let him be free. Give him a chance to find someone who is right for him. If you desire a relationship in the future, give yourself a chance to meet someone who is fine with these things you want to do — someone who encourages you to explore and is willing to have an open, ethically non-monogamous relationship with you. That is the only way to have both committed love and sexual freedom — to “have it all” — and still be a good human.

If you don’t leave him — if you keep things going like this — you will cross a line from being a regular guy struggling to figure things out, to just being a bad guy. You will go from “married guy who discovers adventurous sex and doesn’t know how to fit it into his life” to just being a malicious and deceitful gay man, the kind I tell others to look out for. There are many guys out there like that. Don’t be one of them. They are the liars and cheats. They are created by shame and the closet or simply the spineless unwillingness to tell the truth and do what they want openly. 

People in difficult transitions inspire my sympathy and understanding. I went through a messy transition out of monogamous relationships, and I’d wager most ethically non-monogamous people did too. But there comes a point at which you are no longer a confused beginner in a transition period. After that point, you are just being shitty. Don’t be shitty.  

Love, Beastly 

Help! How do I sext?? My husband and I have been together since before smartphones and we missed out on sexting. I don’t know how to be good at this. I don’t know how to take good pictures of myself or my dick. I want to keep this going because we are both having a blast. This has made our sex life so much hotter. We are sexting like we are dating and we are making plans to hook up on the weekend. We were sexting while we were eating Chipotle the other day. It was hot, sex the next night was so much better. Tips, tricks, anything.

Hey cutie,

I love that you are sexting with your husband. I wish I could consult the official guide to making good nudes, but sadly it does not exist. Sexting is hot when it’s bumbling and fearless — that mix of brave and dopey that is why we love himbos and frat guys, men who take dick pics in dirty mirrors. That earnest, unapologetic way of making a nude is somehow hotter than anything too clean.  Think: amateur porn versus studio. The former is hot and real. 

All that said, I am not great at taking sexy pics, so I decided to invite a friend, porn star Troy Daniels, to answer this question for me. Troy’s glorious selfie skills are displayed at the top of this post. He knows a lot more about this than I do. He is, among other things, very talented at taking hot photos of himself. For more proof of this, check him out on X and Instagram at @justcantstahp.

Here is his reply to your message:

Hey sexy sexter,

Treat sexting like an exercise in ‘yes, and?’ improvisation. You want to see me in my favorite jock? Yes. And I’m gonna make sure it’s the one I’ve been wearing at the gym all week! Always provide something that the other party can build on top of and make a comment about. The worst is a sexter who provides no meat in the conversation. ‘How are you?’ ‘Good.’ ‘Where are you?’ ‘At home.’ No one cares. ‘I’m at home, horny and thinking about you, we fucked so good the other night, that I can’t wait for tonight.’ Ding ding ding. Now we’re getting somewhere. Next is how to lube up the conversation with some pics! Start by taking a million. Delete the ones you hate, and figure out what it is about the ones you like that makes them enticing. Try a bunch of different angles. I found investing in a small tripod with a detachable shutter button (I don’t know what this is in English) made taking a multitude and variety of pictures easier than using the timer and walking back and forth from the camera and where I want to take my picture. My favorite angle is putting the camera low to the ground, below crotch level, and angled up. Stand above it like standing above your prize. This gets the point across of what you’re trying to sell. Taking pictures could also be a fun activity to explore with your partner. Have them take sexy pics of you that you can send back to them later during a round of sexting, and vice versa. ‘Remember how hard I was when you took this?’ ‘This is how you’re gonna find me when you come home!’ Like all new pastimes, there will probably be a learning curve to adapt to, but I imagine with your partner along for the ride, that will make the experience even more fun.

XOXO

TD

Follow Troy and show him love! 

Love, Beastly

Hi Beastly,

I remember you mentioning your “Pillars” during a response. You discussed the system pretty clearly, but I had a question to ask: what would you suggest someone do if *none* of their pillars are available? I think the past few years have been a bit of a depressive spiral that I’m still trying to pull myself out of, so I’m not exactly doing the things that I used to tie my identity to. My hobbies? What hobbies? I miss my sports clubs, my gym, my artistic endeavours, my books, my kitchen… in a lot of ways, I miss who I used to be.

I’m not 100% sure if I need to reshuffle what my pillars are or if I need to try and make a concerted effort to reconnect with the pillars I’ve had. I suspect it’ll be a mix of the two – what I liked about myself and what I want to see in myself moving forward. Anyways, I thought I’d ask – do you have any suggestions for helping people find their pillars?

– Chronic Identity Crisis (He/They)

Hey CIC, 

Your message is a powerful description of aging. I remember writing about pillars, but after hunting for it in old posts, I can’t find it. That’s fine: I talk about pillars a lot and there are probably a few posts here that mention them.

For readers needing context, “pillars” are what I call the things we build our lives with — things that form our identities and our sense of self. Pillars might be your job, your hobbies, your looks, your money, your relationship, your political views, and so on. 

The truth is, “pillars” may be the wrong word to use, as it suggests these things are fixed and unmoving, and that they are either standing strong or knocked down. The reality is different: a pillar may be on the way out while another may still be in gestation, not yet fully formed.

Meditation has helped me see that these “fixed” points of self are not fixed at all. Impermanence is a concept that people with anxiety and depression may struggle with, but it is a true part of life: everything is constantly changing, both in ourselves and in the world we live in. This means the things we prop our lives on will change too. And that is good. 

Pillars come and go. It can be painful to see a passion dwindle or a life purpose fall away, but that is what it means to witness change in real time, and it is majestic. My friend, your pillars are not down. They are changing. You grew! 

Depression is hard, and it can be triggered or at least exacerbated by seeing things that you thought were solid, unshakeable parts of yourself become relics of the past. But that process is life. To not embrace it is to overlook one of the great gifts of living.

This seems like a good time to address an elephant in the room: the frequency of posts on this blog. Lately, I have struggled with writer’s block. It’s frustrating because I feel like I just got good at this craft. I know what I’m doing, but for some time now I have been unsure what to say. Although I’ve never hit big, mainstream success, I am proud of my work. For most of it, I felt charged by a mission to help the world, support gay men, or at least tell my story. Lately, I have felt charged by none of these things.

There is so much content online, so many people talking, and much of it is noise. It’s overwhelming. The sheer volume of people vying for our attention is not good for anyone. It’s not good for my mental health or yours. The last thing I want to do is contribute to noise. If I put words out there, they should be meaningful.

Unfortunately, that is not a good business strategy. I am a working writer, so I must keep at it, even when I don’t feel the fire. That is hard. It has, I admit, made me love it less. This blog is a low-paying thing to labor on, especially at a time when I do not feel it so much as a labor of love. 

The idea that I might not love writing now or, worse, that I might not be a writer anymore is so threatening to my sense of self that I nearly shut down at the thought. Having writer’s block is almost worse than depression. I know how to navigate depression. I’ve been there. Writer’s block is new — a black, mapless void.

Seeing that void, it is hard to find peace in impermanence. It is offensive to think that something so core to my self might not be permanent — that this thing I’ve pinned my life on could change. Such a strong response means this is a feeling I must sit with.

There are other things in my life like this, other pillars: looks, fitness, bottoming. Bottoming, in particular, has been a big struggle at times because of stomach and GI issues. I have wondered seriously if I can live without it. It’s a funny hill to die on, but hey, why not? What else do I live for? When days end, all I want is to get fucked and fisted. I don’t want life without it. 

And this feels toxic to admit, but if something were to happen to me (car accident, cancer) that barred me from working out, being cute, and enjoying what space in the arena of gay image standards I have carved for myself, could I go on? I do not know. I know my body will age, and I have not made peace with that as I should. I recognise this as my body dysmorphia, my image issues, and I imagine these fears echo those of most gay men.

I do not know what your pillars are (or were), but I suspect that musings like this have passed through your mind, too. Can I live without these things? 

If you feel like your pillars are down, maybe it’s because important things like this — a life mission (writing), looks, sex — are changing and it’s not fair, not right, that one is expected to live without them. The raw fact is, you don’t have to. Every day that you wake up, life is yours to choose or throw away. Only people with histories of depression know what severe depression feels like — when this daily choice feels like a tough decision and you go day in and out really debating it. In my darkest months, I had to consciously choose life. When I wonder if I could live without my so-called pillars, I go back to the memory of those times and I remember why I chose to live and why I still do.

Change often comes with depression, and vice versa. It is hard to accept that everything is in flux, but it is. Everything is on a journey. You may be scrambling around, trying to find things to prop yourself up or reinforce what once defined you. Here is the lesson from my dark depressive periods: If you make it through, things will be different, and there will be new pillars propping you up — and they just might be better than the ones you had before. 

You could fear that, or you could approach it with curiosity and wonder. That is easier said than done, but that is what I try to do, and that is what you must try to do. Let’s try it together. 

Life is change. Everything has a season. Our passions, hobbies, relationships, looks, identities — all have a journey. We are lucky that we can outgrow pillars and find new ones. When I became HIV-positive, I thought the world had ended. Everything was different, dating ruined, my youth shattered. All pillars fell at once. If I had given up then — as I almost did — I would not have found the things that came later, the beautiful pillars that shaped my life. 

I am older now but blows like that still happen. I used to think life must eventually settle into a place of calm. But it does not. Friends die, marriages fall apart, and more shitty diagnoses are on the way. There will come a day when my looks go, just as there might come a day when I stop writing. There may even be a night when I decide I can no longer bottom. All that would be so painful. Some of those changes will be hard to live through. But then, some light breaks through: What will I find after I mourn these things? What pillars await? What if the best part of my life hasn’t happened yet? What if my best self is still waiting to arrive in the world? 

Love, Beastly