When Your Friend Ruins Your Relationship By Sharing Your Past

All right, this isn't your everyday giveaway. You know I'm all about pleasure. And today I'm giving you something totally new. Silent vibrators. After 20 years of trying just about every toy on the market, it takes a lot to surprise me. And the Whisper Tech line that Bellesa just launched is totally unique. They've made vibrators that are powerful and completely quiet. No buzz, no hum, all pleasure. Zero noise, even if someone's sleeping right next to you. There's the Whisper Vibe, the Whisper Rabbit, the Whisper Wand, and the Whisper Bullet, all designed to give you deep, satisfying vibes in total discretion. And here's best part. Belessa and I are doing a giveaway where everyone wins. With any Whisper tech order, you'll get a free Whisper Vibe or a free viral rose suction toy. Normally 99, but yours free. Just tap the link in the episode description or head to bbvibes.com Emily that's B B V-I-B E S.com Emily silent, chic, powerful. Go get one today. If you're five months into a relationship for everybody, I think it's important to understand if you are sexually compatible by this point. If you're having sex, everyone should pretty much know that. Because what we often see is that people get into relationships, they look back at the beginning and they knew it wasn't so great and they weren't compatible. But they stayed in the relationship thinking it was going to change, thinking their partner was going to come around, and it doesn't. You're listening to Sex with Emily. I'm Dr. Emily, and I'm here to help you prioritize your pleasure and liberate the conversation around sex. Today, we are bringing back the Am I the asshole? Trend. For a special Sex, Dating and Relationships edition, we're diving into real scenarios submitted by listeners who are wondering whether they crossed a line or handled a situation poorly. Here's what I want you to remember as we dig into these stories. Most of the time, people aren't acting like assholes because they're inherently bad people. They're acting that way because we don't have enough information about sex and relationships and we're not taught how to communicate about these topics effectively. My goal isn't to shame anyone, but to help all of us recognize when we might be dabbling in asshole territory. And more importantly, how to course correct with better communication, boundaries and understanding. All right, let's get into these scenarios and figure out who needs to do some reflecting. All right, this is from Sarika. Am I The asshole for not wanting a threesome with my husband. Backstory. I've had and been open to threesomes with a few people in the past. They were flings, nothing serious and just having fun. My husband and I have been together for four years, married for eight months. We recently separated a few months ago and are living in separate homes. We're working on it, but going to marriage counseling. Plus he mentions it in the past that he feels like previous men in my life have had better sexual experiences, threesomes with me, and I've given them more than I give him. I explained to him that under certain circumstances I would be comfortable with a random person, one night stand situation, not anybody we know. Personally, I really love him and just wouldn't feel comfortable doing that with him. I don't really want to share my husband with anybody. I feel like we're committed to each other, and that's something I did with less committed individuals. I'm not entirely shutting it down either. I just haven't encountered a situation that I would be down with. Apparently this really bothers him. Am I the asshole? Is he the asshole? All right. This is a complex one.

A very complex one.

Yeah. And it's common. So first, let me say a lot of things. Come up here first. It's really common for us to be in a relationship where we've shared everything with our partners, in this case our husband. And they tend to reflect on the past and think, well, you did that in the past. You should do it with me. Like, why did someone else have it better than we're having it? And it's really hard when we share our past sexual history with a partner for them not to think about it.

That is so true. I wish that couples could have more open communication about their past sex lives, because I think it's important. But I do feel like it often rears its ugly head. Like sometimes the past is just best left in the past.

Absolutely. Sometimes I say more mystery, less history. Right.

I love that.

And so I think for some couples, it's better to leave the past. The past. It's a case by case basis in every relationship situation. But in this case, we're finding that he just can't forget it. And I've seen this a lot where we tell our partners how, when, who we slept with. Right. We share that number. Sometimes our partners can't get that number out of our head. So we have to be really selective. I think the rule of thumb here is, why am I sharing it? Am I sharing this? Because in A way I want my partner to see the cool history I had is because I'm revealing information that I think could be really hot for us to experience in the future together. I think we really have to think long and hard before we share information because this is. This is usually comes up where they're like, you did this in the past, or you know, what you did in the past. I'm judging you. So again, before you share anything, take a moment and think, why am I sharing this? Okay, so she might have had a moment. In hindsight, she could have thought, I'm not sure I want to do this again. I'm going to keep this to myself. But that's neither here nor there. That's just our little educational moment for everyone to think about. But going forward. Listen, I do not think that she is an asshole at all for not wanting to do what she did in the past.

Definitely not.

There's no way. Plus, their marriage is on the rocks right now.

I was just gonna say you guys are living in separate homes and now he wants a threesome.

Yeah.

Emily, you always say that threesomes should only happen if you have done all the communication, the ins, the outs, the. Are they sleeping over all the. They're already having trouble communicating. Now you wanna add a threesome into the mix.

It is not a good time to do that. You don't do a threesome to fix your relationship, to spice up your. To make it hotter, to make it better. Threesomes are particularly for couples who have a really great sex life already. Their boundaries are set. They've discussed it a lot. They know why they want to do it, and the reason does not include to make our relationship better. So in this case, you're not an asshole at all. And I think that you are very, very clear here. You did it in the past with less committed individuals, which I can relate to. A lot of my hot threesomes when I was in relationships with people that were less committed, it was a little bit more fun, a bit more playful. And then there's certain relationships where you're like, I'm just not there yet. What I also think is important is that you said that you're not shutting it down completely. But right now, where you're at with your husband, you're in a repair state and you're feeling like he's just not the guy you'd want to do it, not a threesome with. So you're being really clear. What probably needs to happen is your husband needs to get his head around the Fact that it's something that's in your past. Perhaps you could propose to him. If you do stay together, this would be a really good time to find out what is hot for us. Like what would be on the threesome spectrum that would still make him feel connected to some sort of kink or something a little bit more alternative. That's not a threesome because it sounds like he's just wanting some of your freer, playful, right. Open self and he's feeling like he's not getting that.

Right.

Does that mean you get to ask him what that means? If threesome's off the table for now, what might make it hot and exciting if you guys do decide to stay together?

Exactly. Especially if this is kind of a new request that he has now that things are a little bit rocky in the relationship. Like, what is the push to have a threesome now? Yeah, I'm confused. Maybe he wants to tap into like her past self, but she's not in the past. She wants to invest in the present and the future with her husband.

You have to look at where you guys are right now, what your relationship is about. Remember it. This is no good comparing it to the past because every time you're with someone, the two of you are creating a new dynamic that is special to your relationship. So you, your sex life, the experiences you've had, and what you both want right now at this point in your life is how you should be making decisions moving forward. So it sounds like there's some other really rich, important conversations to have about your own turn ons and desires. So if you do decide to stay together, you kind of have a blueprint going forward for the future. What you might try, but you can just let them know that the threesome's off the table for now. But you're really open to exploring what might be hot for both of you.

So I think we can pretty much say, no, you are not the asshole.

Not the asshole.

But she does ask at the end, is he the asshole?

I think that neither of you are assholes. I think that's the common thing we have to point out here, is that when we do share our past with our partners, not only might they think it's hot, but their brain a lot of times goes to, well, I'm gonna be better than that one, right? I'm gonna be your best lover ever. I'm gonna be the next level lover. So what he is is a common, typical partner who wants to be the best ever and thinks that having a threesome would bring out this past that you've had and he would be able to top it. Perhaps. Or he just wants to have a threesome on his own, but I do not think that it all makes him an asshole.

I agree.

All right, this is from not so happy. 2, 3, 4, 5, 6am I the asshole for not believing my girlfriend's discomfort during sex? Pretty much says it in the title. Whenever I initiate sex with my girlfriend, she winces in pain and says it's uncomfortable. Yet whenever she's up for it, there seems to be no pain pain issue at all. Last night we were fooling around and I got her to orgasm through foreplay. Zero issues or pain. I was pretty into it and initiated sex and instantly she was uncomfortable despite me slowing down the pace. Finally, after one thrust, she yelled out in pain pretty much directly in my face, which was the final straw for me. This has been happening for so long now that she never does anything about it, and to be honest, I doubt there is any pain. And if there is, then she seems to be exaggerating it way out of proportion. I know that people will say no vagina, no opinion, but I know for a fact that I wasn't being forceful or rough, so to downright scream in my face was totally unnecessary. She has no other symptoms or discomfort aside from this. And like I said, if she initiates, then miraculously there's no problem. It's not a lube thing either. Trust me, I've tried that too. I guess the reason I'm asking is because last night we kind of had a big fight about it. I lost my cool and I told her how it's a huge turnoff to see her face screwed up in pain all the time and how I didn't think the pain was as bad as she was making out. I told her that the sex was becoming really boring and I could pretty much predict how it would go each time. I also said the only solution at this point was to not have sex. She called me an asshole and went on the offensive, said that I have two moves and yet I expect her to be like a porn star. So am I the asshole or should there be more give and take in this scenario? Can I insist that she get a medical checked? All right. Wow. Okay.

Okay, well.

This is what I'm hearing from a sex doctor, right? She has some pain during penetration that is so common that women have pain during penetration and she might feel some shame around it. She might not be able to explain what it is. She might feel like something's wrong with her that she has pain. But what I'm hearing here is a case of she's got something called vaginismus or vulvodynia. Mostly it's vaginismus. When anything is inserted into her vagina, she's excluded excruciating pain and she's not able to articulate it. And the reason why she might have been able to have foreplay orgasm is because he was stimulating her externally. And that's what's going on here. So.

And when they have vaginismus, it doesn't matter how slow you're going or how big or small. It's like even a finger or a tampon can be painful.

Right? So, yeah, she's not sharing with you what's going on, doesn't say how long you've been together. But I doubt that she is faking her pain.

I doubt it.

She's just not being clear to you what she's actually experiencing. And I think that this is a great moment for you to talk to her and just kind of get curious about it. I understand why you are getting frustrated, but get curious about it. Let her know that you want to understand her pain. And yeah, I think you can insist she gets a medical check. And I would recommend that she goes to see a pelvic floor physical therapist is a great place to start for women who have pain. And remember, a lot of women do have this kind of pain and they don't know where to go because no one talks about it. And it's confusing without the information out there.

I completely understand how that would be frustrating. And she should go to the doctor. She should go to pelvic floor physical therapist, as you said. At the same time, I do feel like it's. It's a little asshole behavior to be saying that her, her face screwed up in pain is a turn off. It's like maybe that can be a moment to stop, ask her more about it. Like, again, it really doesn't matter how slow or how rough you're being. If it's painful, it's painful.

And also shaming her for her face. There's lots of women who feel that they can't make a weird face. They have to always look hot during sex. And so that keeps a lot of women from having orgasms, having pleasure, because they're afraid of their O face. And so that shaming around her pain face is certainly reminiscent of that concern that a lot of women have. I guess I can see both sides of it. I understand why he's saying this. Though, because he's had this time with her where it feels like it's definitely not in his terms, it's only on her terms, and he's not getting his needs met. But again, pain trumps everything else. When you are in pain during sex, you have to stop the pain. And it does not sound in any way that she is faking her pain. It just sounds like she probably doesn't have understanding of the pain and maybe she's hoping it goes away. But listen, when you have serious pain during penetration, it usually does not go away without seeing a medical doctor. And specifically for many a pelvic floor physical therapists, the good news here is that a lot of women who do have vaginal pain are able to work it through with the right help. This is what I'm recommending here. And side note, weed can also be a great pain reliever for sex. For many people, weed works. Taking an edible like Via Hem company has these amazing edibles that I just love. And they also help with desire and arousal and helps your anxieties melt away, but can also help with pain.

Cannabis is definitely a great pain reliever as well.

Yeah, for sure. You have to remember that. Bottom line, you're an asshole. Ish. But here's the problem, Erica. You know me, I'm gonna have a really hard time calling anyone a complete. I know. Because I can see both sides of every situation. And I see a world where we don't have enough information about sex. We don't talk about sex enough. And as a result of that, a lot of us act like.

Yep.

Because we can't communicate and we don't have information.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's more like, do you have tendencies? I think we all have tendencies to say, am I an period? That's tough. We probably won't be doing that on Sex with Emily.

Exactly. But we're gonna let you know when you're dabbling.

Yeah, Dabbling in asshole territory.

If you're dabbling in asshole territory, we want to point you in the right direction.

And not the good kind.

Exactly. Not the good kind of asshole dabble.

Speaking of dabbling, speaking of dabbling, should.

We jump to the anal?

Let's jump to anal.

Okay.

The one time we're gonna go from zero to anal.

We're gonna go from zero to anal real quickly here. Okay. This is from throwaway 939678. Am I the asshole for not wanting to have anal sex with my boyfriend? Here's some backstory. I've been with my boyfriend for A year. I'm very vanilla and prudish. My boyfriend is, to be frank, kinky. We started having sex. He asked if I had anything I would refuse to do during sex. I told him that anal was a huge no go and thought that was it. I've tried anal once. The guy I was with used a lot of lube. It still hurt.

I.

And when I told him to stop, he didn't. He knows this now. He started begging me to have anal sex with him. I've told him that it was a firm no, that there's a lot I might be willing to do during sex, but anal is a boundary I don't want to cross now. He won't stop bothering me about it. We should try this. Or that. It doesn't hurt if you use lube. Please. I promise it won't hurt. And his favorite. But you've never tried it with me. I don't care that I've never tried it with you. I don't enjoy it, have a bad history with it, and I've tried compromising with you, but you refuse. He's called me an asshole and asked me why I'm such a prude. I'm seriously considering ending the relationship. So, Reddit, who's the asshole?

Wow.

Wow.

Okay, there is an edit here that says she decided she'll be breaking up with him in a few hours. I think she did decide that he was an and I mean, you have to agree. Well, again, it's hard to call someone an.

It's hard. 100 exactly. Okay, so on the surface, yes, Anybody who pressures their partner to do something they don't want to do sexually isn't cool in my book. And maybe they're an asshole. You don't want to ever pressure your partner do something that's a hard no. It's a hard no. Okay, so yeah, to make her feel guilty and to bring it up all the time when she's told you she had a very bad experience, that kind of makes you an asshole. It does, in the universal sense of asshole. However, I can't help but have an educational moment here to remind all of you that her story is very, very familiar. And in fact, there's a lot of anal not happening in the world because people had a very bad first time experience where someone shoved it in. There was no lube, there was no prep, and as a result of that, they have totally turned in their anal card and said, I'm never doing it again. This goes to the fact that we don't have anal education and that just because you had a bad time first experience does not mean that the next time won't be better. And in fact, we've heard from so many listeners who've turned that around. They learned that you need a consensual partner, that you got to go slow, that you got to roll into lube, that you got to try with some external play first. Use a finger. All the things that we talk about all the time on the show. 99.9% of the world don't know this. And so, yes, he's an asshole for pressuring her. Sounds like she already decided to dump him. But I want to say that there might be room for anal in your future if you're with a consenting partner. Because there's so many wonderful nerve endings and a lot of vulva owners actually do learn to love anal.

I think that the key to enjoying anal penetration is that it's a really collaborative experience. Your partner knows to go slow to start with a finger, apply lots of lube, but if they're the ones telling you, oh, it's not gonna be painful, but they're not open to receiving anal penetration themselves, they really have no leg to stand on. Because anal, yeah, it can feel amazing. And it also requires a lot of prep, a lot of knowing what you're doing. Like, it's. It's not just a let's, let's do it randomly type of thing. So unless he's open to receiving it himself, I don't think he has any ground to stand on. Pressuring you and saying it's.

Oh, it's. In this case, she should also say to him, like, let me penetrate you.

Yeah, okay. It's no big deal. Let's you try it first.

Really? We all have assholes, and they all feel great penetrated with that.

He has a prostate.

He's got a prostate. There's a lot they could do here for more fun, but that's a great way to throw it back at him.

I agree. Anal sounds amazing. Let's start with you.

You know what the problem is, though, Erica? All this just takes a little bit of education. Like, if all these people just listen to a few episodes, did some research, they'd understand that they could find more pleasure. But I think again, without information, when you are just pushing your partner, pushing your partner, that's never going to work. Coercing your partner, threatening them, and bringing it up every day is just going to make your situation worse. So I would say there's some asholish tendency.

Asshole. Ish. Asshole.

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Wow, there's a lot there.

You're definitely not an asshole. This can be very very shocking to hear about our parents sexual history and what's going on with them. I mean look at our culture. Nobody talks to their parents about sex. Nobody wants to hear their parents talk about sex. And when I say nobody, it's rare that we have healthy, productive, effective conversations parents and children around sex. It just doesn't happen. And so when we do hear something about sex and it's there's been this kink going on, she probably doesn't understand it. What do you mean by that? And it's very, very confusing. Listen, if your best friend told you she was in a kink relationship like this, it might be confusing, right? So understanding, like bdsm, you know, wearing a key around your neck and your partner owns it. And what does that mean for your sexuality and your relationship? And everyone who's in these kind of relationships gets to make their own rules. And it so for the first time to tell her daughter in this way that what you thought you were seeing isn't true. The necklace really isn't about that. And then she actually goes into this Reddit and says that now that it's revealed, she's having repressed memories of hearing her parents, overhearing them fighting with her dad, calling the mom dirty and awful names, and hearing the mom kneel down and kiss his feet. Now that's really, really confusing for a small child. And so I think that. That she uses the word trauma, that she's traumatized. I think it makes sense. I think the mom didn't have enough information, and she wasn't responsible in telling her daughter. When we go to somebody with a kink or to have a really serious sexual conversation, we have to remember that we have to really have this conversation in a very thoughtful way. So how the mom could do it is make sure the daughter was open to it and then let her know what this kink meant and how it went down. And, like, say, I'm available to answer any questions you have about it and to make it like an ongoing conversation. But first the question would be, are you open to hearing this? I just think that maybe at 20 years old, sounds like her daughter wasn't. And giving your daughter an option and saying, I think that might have been the best way to go. Like, would you be open to hearing something rather than dropping it all on her walking away and then she's having all these memories come up. It doesn't sound like it was healthy.

I don't think so either. And some of the comments are saying even if her parents were having, like, quotes, straightforward vanilla sex, the kid probably shouldn't hear about that either. But I'm curious what your take is on that, because I do think there are healthy conversations that people can have with their parents. But do you think that should ever involve, like, what their parents like, even if it's not kinky or just kind of the information that they need?

It's a great question because, you know, in the world that I want to live in, we are very open about sex.

Right?

I think that's important for Parents to let kids know that they have special time where they're intimate. And it doesn't include the kids, that it's adult time. You start calling it adult time when they're kids. And then eventually in households where sex is discussed, perhaps something more organic would come up. But no, I don't think, as a practice, starting to share with your kids what kind of sex you're having is really helpful, especially given how the lack of sex education that we have, especially in America. I think it's okay for parents, again, to let them know that we set time aside for each other and that if you overhear anything, maybe let them know we were having time together, we were having intimate time. I think could be helpful for kids so they're not getting off in their own heads about what did it mean, what I just heard. So that's important to let kids know that mommy and daddy have time together. Mommy and mommy. But I think this is a little bit too specific.

Yeah. And again, I am not kink shaming the mom at all. The mom and dad can do whatever they want. I just don't know if you need to tell your kids about that. Personally.

Yeah. I think this is too much. I'm with you. If the mom is feeling like, I can't believe you're kink shaming me. The mom is not handling this.

Yeah. I think she's got some work to do about around that.

The mom's got a lot of work to do here. The mom is just like. Like, you're kick shaming me. You're not accepting us. What does she think? She's probably never talked to her daughter about sex in 20 years and she drops this bomb.

Yeah.

And then she's blaming the child. So there's a lot more relational skills that need to go on here. A lot more discussions, a lot more compassion and empathy for her daughter. And I don't really. I'm not seeing that here at all.

Yeah. Not seeing that and not giving her space to process this, like, major information. Now the mom is getting angry at her. I don't know.

That's kind of.

That's kind of.

That's on the spectrum and sounds like someone who needs to do a lot of work on themselves and probably both of them. Remember, therapy is great for everybody.

Yeah. Thanks, Queenie. Kitty.

Sarah, thank you so much for that. This is from. It's not me. Am I the asshole for breaking up with my girlfriend because we didn't have enough sex? We met five months ago and we fell in love fast. But After a while, she told me she was a virgin and wasn't ready to have sex. I told her it's okay and we will walk through it together, but it was so long and it took everything from me. After we actually did it for the first time, she told me she's not going to do it again. She felt so much shame and regret. I was understanding at first and tried to convince her that I need sex in the relationship because that's how I can feel close to you. After basically begging for sex, she came out as asexual and told me that she doesn't want to have sex ever. I was calm and went home and thought about it and the next day told her I want to break up. She asked if this was because she's asexual and I couldn't say yes. I told her that I'm not ready to be in a relationship right now and it's going really fast. Edit. I didn't pressure at all. I said first sex is very important. She agreed that she wanted to have sex, but I have to be slow and make her comfortable, which I did. Then after the first time, she told me that she didn't feel comfortable. Oh my God. There's 3,000 comments on this.

Oh my God.

They sound like a little bit of a younger couple.

Yeah.

And I think, listen, she was expressing that she. She tried to have sex. She wasn't ready for it. You're pressuring because you really want to have sex, which I understand. People in relationships have sex to see if they're compatible. And then she said she's asexual. We need to understand what asexuality is. Asexual means like you actually. You might want affection, you might want connection, you might want some kind of touch, but you actually aren't interested in sex. And so where I think the. Where there could be some work here is that once she said that it would have been okay for him to say, well, then I think this relationship isn't going to work because I'm somebody who prioritizes sex. Sex is important to me. So I don't think you're an asshole for breaking up. I think that it's asshole ish to not be honest. Thank you so much for being real to me that you are actually not into sex. You know, I'm glad that this was able to make you realize that you are asexual. I'm somebody who wants to be in a relationship with someone who wants to have sex.

Yeah.

So let's just part ways here. And I think it was just a misunderstanding and he was probably thinking he was doing the right thing by saying, no, no, it's not about that. I don't want to hurt your feelings. I don't want to judge you for being asexual.

Right.

But the truth is, remember, if our partner doesn't share our kinks and they never want to come around to it, if our partner doesn't prioritize sex, sex doesn't have a growth mindset around sex, doesn't ever want to have sex, doesn't like the same kind of sex we have. And we've really tried to make it work through all the things we talk about on the show and you guys are still not on the same page. It's okay to end the relationship on the grounds of not wanting the same kind of sex or wanting sex at all.

I think there's so many other ways that we measure compatibility and we don't often value sexual compatibility. And if you are someone who values sex in a relationship and your partner does not desire sex, then that's.

That is ground.

Yeah.

People always ask, is it okay to end the relationship because of bad sex or not great sex? I mean, I think if you've really worked on and done everything you can do.

And also because it's so early in their relationship, I feel like they're still getting information about each other in general. I think it might be a different scenario if you're like 20 years down the line. You know, the relationship has turned sexless. There's some work that can be done there versus here. It's like it, it's five months. Yeah, it's five months.

It's five months. Five months in. Listen.

And if they're young, they've got a whole life of relationships to have and experience.

And what I love about this though is that if you're five months into a relationship for everybody, I think it's important to understand if you are sexually compatible by this point. If you're having sex, everyone should pretty much know that. Because what we often see is that people get into relationships, they look back at the beginning and they knew it wasn't so great and they weren't compatible. But they stayed in the relationship thinking it was going to change, thinking their partner was going to come around and it doesn't. And then they're in the 20 year relationship wondering what went wrong with our sex life. When really the information was there in the beginning. It usually is. So this is your sign to have conversations about sex right now, no matter what stage of the relationship you're in so you can make better decisions going forward. And listen, we have an article up right now that you should check out. 7 Signs of Sexual Compatibility. We'll link that in the show notes.

Just looking at all these comments here, I think there's a lot of misunderstanding of the scenario. It sounds like he was very gracious during her sexual debut. Going slow. You don't sound like an.

To me, you really don't sound like an asshole. You just sound like someone who's like, wants to have sex with a partner and then she springs asexual on you, which is confusing. And you know, studies have shown that only 1% of the population is actually asexual. So it's not like we come across that all the time.

Right? And that's, that's what I'm thinking about too. Not to, you know, judge or devalue anyone's sexuality, but if this is her first time having sex and she has a lot of shame around it, I'm like, is it truly asexuality or is it.

Good question. I think that she's probably too soon to say that she's asexual. I think that that's an easy label to slap on ourselves when we have shame and when we're uncertain about sexual sex. If we grew up in an environment where sex is shameful, that's the only message we receive. We have to take some time to really figure out, is that true? Does that work for me anymore? So it might have been convenient for her to say I'm asexual and not really understanding completely what it means to be asexual. It actually takes some work being out in the world to understand that. Although I'm sure there are younger people who are certain they're asexual. But typically what I've seen, if you grow up with shame, it sounds like there's a lot of other things going on. She might need to do a little bit more exploring, but not necessarily in this relationship. This is from Starboy67. Am I an asshole for telling that my friend had threesomes in college and a drinking game in front of her new boyfriend for the New Year's, a bunch of old friends came to my parents house for dinner. We're all pretty close. And my friend Maria brought her new boyfriend of eight months. For what it's worth, I've known Maria my entire life. I know she's always been proud of her sexuality and said if a guy judges me for my past, he doesn't have my values and I don't want him. So, yeah, we were all talking, and people shared embarrassing and definitely personal stories about each other. Then I don't know how it came up, but I brought up how Maria would have threesomes with her boyfriend and girls from her Indian dance team. I don't know. We were all laughing. Then 10 minutes later, Maria and her boyfriend both left. Turns out now he broke up with her. I don't know the details, but long story short, he felt kind of bad that she was so much more sexual with other guys than she was with him. I don't see how I was the asshole in the situation. I don't even see how it's that bad. Was I wrong here, or was this just an unfortunate situation?

Oh, star boy. Got yourself into some hot water there.

This is a little bit tricky, star boy, because here's the thing. I know you guys have been friends for a really long time, but this is the area where no matter how comfortable our friends are, when there's new people in the room and it's about your friend's sex life, you should really allow them to have that conversation. We wouldn't talk about our partner's money history. We wouldn't talk about their sex history. It is really, really personal. And since sex is a charged subject, I think that it wasn't great to bring it up, and that would be something that we have to let her do at her own time. And it's a new partner. And even though it's fun, you guys have joked about it a lot. Listen, we also change. She might have said in the past she doesn't want to be with anyone who doesn't share her values. And the way he heard this, it just went wrong. Maybe she would have told him when she was ready, but this clearly jumped the gun here.

Yeah.

Wasn't pretty.

Yeah. I would say, long story short, this was kind of an asshole move. I don't think it was intentional at all, but just. Yeah, I think other people's sex lives are not your. Your stories to share. Like, I could see maybe if they were together for, like, 10 years and you knew that they had already talked about this before. Yeah, maybe. But even then, unless she was the type of person to tell all her friends, like, she's very open about her sexual history. Yeah, I don't think that's your call.

To me, it's really never your call to make. And it's a new partner, and it's. We should all just know, like, someone brings a new partner, especially you've been friends. You've seen her in different scenarios with different partners and different relationships. We can't assume that someone's new partner is someone that's going to be around. We don't really know about their personality. So I just think that we always err on the side of caution when you are revealing something personal about anybody and someone's secret. No matter how comfortable you are with a friend, I think we always have to be careful. Err on the side of does this make me a good friend? Have this person entrusted secrets in me that I just cannot share? It was her story to tell, but I also understand why you did it because you have all this history with her and she's pretty cool and outspoken. We never know what's going on in any relationship and how people are going to respond, especially when it comes to sex. Particularly threesomes. Yeah, always a point of contention. And as we discussed, people want to have threesomes with their partners or they have judgments around threesomes and it just isn't great party conversation unless she brought it up.

So thanks Starboy. You'll do better next time.

Now you know exactly what a great learning opportunity for Starboy and for everyone listening. Yeah.

Thanks everyone.

Okay, thanks. That's it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening to Sex with Emily. And if you love the show, please like subscribe and leave a review wherever you get your podcasts. And hey, share this with a friend or a partner. It might just spark something. It usually does. You can find me on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, and X. It's all sexwithemily. Oh, and I've been told I give really good email, so sign up@sexwithemily.com for free guides and articles and more ways to prioritize your pleasure.