Common motivations behind the complex psychology of cuckolding, explained.
Cuckolding is a consensual non-monogamous sexual interest where someone gets turned on, or derives sexual arousal from their partner having sex with someone else. It’s something you probably have heard about if you’ve been involved with chastity for very long. That’s because cuckolding gets discussed a lot on blogs and forums devoted to male chastity.
I have written little about cuckolding on this blog for two reasons. It’s not my thing. The idea of watching or even just hearing about my partner having sex with someone else doesn’t turn me on. Nothing against those who practice it and enjoy it. It’s just not my thing. And since I’m single and not interested in dating at the moment, cuckolding isn’t relevant to me, anyway.
Also, I admit I feel a fair amount of resentment that some people treat cuckolding as just the next logical step to take after embracing permanent chastity. It isn’t. Honestly, I don’t see cuckolding as having anything to do with practicing chastity. Yes, I know many people combine chastity with cuckolding, but cuckolding has been around a long time, long before chastity devices were even a thing. Cuckolding is one of the major themes of the erotic novella, Venus in Furs, which the author first published in 1870. It’s a totally separate kink.
So, why write about cuckolding now? I’m writing about it because Lucie featured cuckolding prominently in the teasing she delivered last week. She sent me a link to a femdom video she told me to watch as one part of an assignment. Then, for the second part, I had to write a short story, using the video as inspiration. Lucie enjoyed the story and told me to post it on the blog so others could read it. So, if cuckolding fiction is right down your street, you can download and read Trophy Wife and the Cuck free here. It’s available as a PDF or ePub.
Besides the assignment, by coincidence, I also read a guest post on the Evolving Your Man blog, which I follow regularly. That also motivated me to write this post. If I had ever had any interest in exploring cuckolding, reading this post, “My Cuckold Relationship: Why I choose him over you,” would have torpedoed it. Frankly, the woman who wrote the post seems like one of the most selfish, heartless human beings I’ve ever heard of. For obvious reasons, I can’t reprint the post here, but I hope you will click the link above, read the post, and see what you think.
Gender and Sexual Orientation in Cuckolding
It is important to note that cuckolding can involve any gender and sexual orientation combinations. But when people associate it with chastity, it usually involves heterosexual or bisexual men and their female partners. So, that combination is what I’m focusing on in this post. Also, some people equate cuckolding with “hotwifing,” another consensual non-monogamous model. But those aren’t interchangeable interests.
As Dr. Justin Lehmiller, founder and editor of Sex and Psychology, explains, “In cuckolding scenarios, there’s usually a BDSM element involved. The cuckold—the person who is watching—takes on a submissive, sometimes masochistic role. In hotwifing, the BDSM element is not present. You have more of an ego boost motivation.” Now let’s get to the common motivations behind the complex psychology of cuckolding.
Why Would a Man Want to Watch His Wife Have Sex With Another Man?
Why would a man want to watch his wife have sex with another man? As I learned while researching for this post, the answer is not simple. There are plenty of deviations among couples who practice cuckolding. But in a scholarly article written by clinical psychologist and author David Ley, Ph.D., commonalties exist in the motivations behind why a man wants his wife or partner to cuckold him.
In interviews with actual practitioners of cuckolding, Dr. Ley observed that while the practice focuses on the female partner’s sexuality, 99% of the time couples incorporate cuckolding at the male partner’s request. Ley found that women, especially wives, rarely go unprompted to their husbands to ask permission to have sex with other men.
When researching cuckolding fantasies, Dr. Lehmiller found that more than half of the heterosexual men in a study had these fantasies, compared to 25 percent of heterosexual women. Gay and bisexual men were more likely than heterosexual men to have cuckolding fantasies, and the same was true of lesbian and bisexual women. Those identifying as non-heterosexual males were more likely to be into cuckolding.
Common Cuckolding Motivations
Based on research, here are common reasons men get turned on, or sexually aroused by watching their wives or partners have sex with other men.
Voyeurism
We live in a culture permeated by porn. Porn is not only readily available, but we can easily access it for free. Most men of high-school age and older have seen pornography and use it as a part of their sexual repertoire. Those accustomed to using such voyeuristic activities in expressing their sexuality may incorporate it into their relationship sexuality. For some, watching their wife or partner have sex with another man may be a next step, or progression, from using a video camera during sex and watching it later, to eventually watching one’s partner have sex with someone else. Many men told me Dr. Ley during interviews that their wife was the most beautiful woman in the world to them and that they would rather watch her having sex than some porn model they didn’t know. Some men involved in cuckolding also told him they referred to these husbands as “porn director husbands,” because the husband had a visual fantasy in his head that he wanted his wife to enact with other men.
Sperm Competition
Authors Christopher Ryan, Terry Gould, and researchers Baker and Bellis suggest cuckolding involves a biological response that affects the male sexual drive. Watching his wife with another man can prompt a husband biologically to have longer, more vigorous sex, have a shorter refractory period between erections, and ejaculate more forcefully. And his ejaculate may even contain more sperm, according to research which has examined the role of competition on sexual performance.
The Thrill of the Taboo
Society stigmatizes few things in our society more than a man who stays with his wife or partner after she “cheats” on him by having sex with others. Historically, society has ostracized and ridiculed such men, regarding them as weak “sissies” or “pussy whipped” men. Some men Dr. Ley interviewed described explicitly cuckolding effects for them that showed they experienced the thrill of a similar taboo, a rush of excitement from engaging in the forbidden and the naughty. The thrill of the taboo also explains why some men experience sexual arousal from kinks like exhibitionism, public sex, and wearing women’s panties and lingerie.
Bisexuality
In more than half of the men Dr. Ley interviewed, male bisexuality played a role in the husband’s desires to watch his wife have sex with another man. This played out like a “bait and switch.” After persuading their wives to cuckold them, these men recruited other men, spending inordinate amounts of time looking for well-endowed men for their wives. Often, these men felt great concern about being seen as heterosexual. They used cuckolding as a pretext to engage sexually with the men they recruited for their wives as well, and most times, wanted their wives to “force” them to be sexual with the other men. That suggests a man so focused on the size of other men’s penises may not really be all that straight.
Physical Issues
Several men Dr. Ley interviewed reported they could not have intercourse as vigorously as their wives enjoyed because of physical or medical issues, such as heart conditions, hypertension, and erectile dysfunction. While most of the wives weren’t unhappy with things, these men often grieved the lowered sexual satisfaction of their wives more strongly than the wives themselves. And that motivated them to encourage their wives to cuckold them by sleeping with other men.
This is one motivation that causes some men to incorporate chastity with cuckolding. First, they persuade their partners to lock them in chastity. Then they claim wearing a chastity device has caused their penis to shrink or made them have erectile dysfunction (ED). These often imagined physical limitations mean they can no longer satisfy their partners sexually and feel it’s unfair that their partners miss out on sexual satisfaction. So the next step is persuading their wives or partners to have sex with other, better equipped and more well-endowed men who can satisfy them sexually.
Masochism
The term “masochism” comes from the name of Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the author of Venus in Furs, a book about sadist dominant women. Leopold posted ads in German newspapers of his day, seeking “energetic young men” to befriend and “pleasure” his wife. It was the humiliation aspect, the mental and emotional masochism of cuckolding that interested Leopold. Specifically, he found being treated as weak, lesser, and not a real man sexually arousing. Like those who seek the thrill of the taboo, some cuckolding includes a strong sadomasochistic flavor, where their female partners dominate, belittle, and degrade their male partner cuckolds, which produces a similar thrill and arousal for both partners.
This is another motivation where chastity gets incorporated. Those who enjoy the sadomasochistic flavor are those who also tend to incorporate small penis humiliation (SPH), forced feminization, and forced male bisexuality into the cuckolding. The chastity device becomes a prop, its presence the evidence that the male’s penis is too small to satisfy his wife or partner sexually, or is so small he doesn’t deserve to have penetrative sex with a woman.
Female Sexual Fulfillment
Women have greater sexual capacity than males. The world record for male orgasms is about 26 in a 24-hour period. But research has documented some women having 60-65 orgasms during a single hour. I chuckled reading this because I once dated a very orgasmic woman. One Sunday morning, during intercourse, she had four orgasms before I ejaculated. I continued stimulating her in other ways, orally, with my fingers, and using various sex toys. It amazed me she continued climaxing again and again. So, after the first four orgasms, I kept a count. In just under an hour, she had 51 orgasms. When she asked me to stop, she explained she had become afraid because she felt she might not be able to stop coming if we continued. Like ever! That blew my mind. So, I accept the research statistics above, at least on the female sexual capacity side.
In his research, Dr. Ley, interviewed many men who reported that their wives were highly sexual beings, with a greater sexual capacity, and it simply turned the husbands on and pleased them to see their wives sexually satisfied, at a degree that a single man could never achieve. The men also reported having a vicarious experience, by being a part of the experience, where they vicariously and strongly experienced the sexual satisfaction their wife experienced. Some reported they also experienced vicariously the greater female sexual capacity and the essence of female sexuality in ways most men never experience it.
There was an interesting comment a man posted to the Evolving Your Man cuckolding blog post I linked to. I’m reprinting the comment (edited for clarity) here because I think it touches directly on this specific motivation.
“My wife and I have had a similar arrangement, and I also enjoy the idea of my wife ‘owning her sexuality’ and owning mine, too. I find my wife’s sexual freedom has deepened our intimacy. When your wife tells you she loves you but prefers to reserve penetrative sex for another man, there is a deep feeling of vulnerability that opens you up to a kind of intimacy that would otherwise not be possible. That might not work for all couples, but it works for us.”
It seems some men focus so intently on their partner’s sexuality and freedom “to own” her sexuality, at the exclusion of their own, that they redefine intimacy in terms of vulnerability and submission and other ways that help them accept (or maybe rationalize) embracing cuckolding. Not sure how common this is, but these guys, men like the one who posted the comment, have elevated their female partner and her desires so far above their own that being cuckolded makes perfect sense. While I applaud their altruistic spirit, I admit I am just not wired for that level of self-sacrifice.
Maybe It’s Only About Selfishness?
Given the diversity of human beings, I don’t pretend I have offered here an exhaustive list of reasons that motivate people to desire cuckolding. But I believe I’ve discussed the most common ones. Now, I will conclude this lengthy post with my view of cuckolding.
I’m sharing only my perspective. I have no wish to offend anyone, and I don’t judge anyone. If you hold a different opinion, I stipulate your opinion is just as valid as mine. But to my mind, cuckolding is at its essence a very selfish sexual interest and practice. I base that not only on the motivations discussed above, but the plentiful number of forum posts I’ve read written by men who are into cuckolding.
Except for (possibly) the female sexual fulfillment motivation, the last one I discussed, I see all the others as examples of glaring male selfishness. Research shows 99% of the time couples incorporate cuckolding at the male partner’s request. Men encourage their wives or partners to have sex with other men because they want their fantasies enacted because it gets them off. They aren’t thinking about their partner’s sexual satisfaction or desires or thinking about the relationships. They want what they want because it makes them horny and will do whatever it takes to get it. But it isn’t only men as the blog post I mentioned shows.
Hopefully, you read the post already. I waited to discuss it until the end so you could form your own opinion. The woman who wrote the post relates how she and her husband were in bed together and he tried to initiate sex with her. But she rebuffed him. Not because she wasn’t in the mood.
She explains her desire and her heart was for Ryan, her lover, who she would spend the upcoming weekend with. And looking forward to the impending tryst with Ryan, she just couldn’t think of allowing her husband to penetrate her then, if ever again. He just didn’t make her heart race and her mind fill with lust and excitement the way Ryan did. She shared all that with her husband, of course. Even though she knew how much her words hurt him. Then she excuses herself with, “I had to be honest with my husband, right?”
Later, she adds as an excuse for her behavior the “permission” her therapist gives her by telling her “she is wired for passion and lust, but also needs the emotional security and consistency her loving husband provides.” Having her cake and eating it too sounds more like it. This woman isn’t just selfish in the extreme. I think she is abusive toward her husband. No human being should tolerate that bullshit. I hope her husband wakes up someday and yanks away the emotional security and consistency blanket. I wouldn’t feel any differently if the roles were reversed. No one deserves that.
So, that’s my take on cuckolding. Not interested. Sorry, not sorry. If it’s your thing, more power to you, bro. Just not for me.