A couple of weeks ago, I got an email from someone who’d read my BDSM pages on my Web site. He said he’d been married for twenty years, had always wanted to explore and experiment with BDSM, but had never shared this with his wife or told her about any of his fantasies.

Now, I get a lot of emails like that, and my response is always the same: “Tell her! You can’t expect to get what you want if you never ask for what you want.”

About three days later, I got another email from the same person, who said “I told my wife I wanted to explore BDSM, and she said that she had always wanted to do the same thing, but never told me. In fact, before we met, she was active in the BDSM community.”

Now, I get that response rather often, too–you’d be amazed how many people, after finally working up the courage o share their deep dark secret (whatever it may be) with their partners, hear “Oh, yeah? I’ve always wanted the same thing!”

But still. Twenty years. Twenty years these people were married, and they never told the other person about their fantasies and interests. Twenty years. Twenty… YEARS.

Jesus Christ. Twenty years???!! What the hell have these two been talking about for the last two decades? The weather? The TV show “Friends?” How do you spend two decades in an intimate relationship with someone, and never once talk about what you want your sexual life to look like?